


idfc

by lunchables



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Recreational Drug Use, Referenced Suicide/Suicide Mention
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2018-09-17 03:35:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9302399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunchables/pseuds/lunchables
Summary: "You know how this ends, don't you?""No. And neither do you."a college au





	1. kiss and sell

They met at a party, because—

Well, where else would they meet? It was college.

Technically, if Shaw was being fair, they met at Starbucks, but Root’s stalking hardly counted

It was stupid. Joss came pounding on Shaw’s door, hiccuping squeaks through her tequila-breath, Zoe close behind her, and they practically dressed Shaw themselves with how quickly they ushered her out of her boxer shorts into something worthier of hormonal drooling.

Saying no to a drunk Joss was asking for a broken nose. Or facing Zoe’s disgusting, uncontrollable sobbing with bullets of snot spouting out of her like a geyser. It was just a mess, and they both knew it, so Shaw tugged on her boots and let Joss manhandle her down the streets and onto a subway car and then into a cab and then they were walking and _eventually_ —

After the forty-six minute commute of Shaw’s bitching and moaning about where the hell they were going, Shaw finally found herself walking through a tremendously, overwhelmingly expensive lobby, and being stuffed into an elevator. Joss and Zoe were giggling like schoolgirls as they fought over one another for the elevator pad, but finally Joss elbowed Zoe in the stomach and smacked a button.

“P2.” Shaw deadpanned. “Please tell me we’re not spending our night at some snob dick’s penthouse.”

Their only response was a synchronized head-turn over their shoulders to look at her, Zoe flashing a quick wink and Joss wiggling her eyebrows before they pulled out their phones to Snapchat the stretching ascent of forty-three floors.

With a low grumble, Shaw’s head hit back against the elevator wall.

 

xx

 

Root was already smirking before the ping-pong ball sunk into the cup, the satisfying _plop_ ringing like a ball through a net.

“Drink up, sweetie,” she purred, tipping her glass of wine in salute as Martine chugged down her plastic cup of stale beer with a glower.

It was Root’s third glass, and her second game of beer pong, but she was just barely feeling a buzz stirring in her gut. Martine’s partner, Jeremy, on the other hand, looked like he was ready to go scrambling for the toilet soon if Root kicked their ass one more time.

Ostensibly, it looked like it was coming to a close game, the brats across the table with two cups left and Root still with three, but in all, with how sloppy Jeremy’s arcs were and how stiff Martine’s wrist was, Root could’ve won this game eight minutes ago. It was all just _that_ much more fun when the opponent felt like they were just at the edge of victory, close enough to smell its sweet merits, before Root crushed their chances and sent them on a spiralling downfall to alcohol poisoning.

Sure, she got a little over the top about winning, but Root was a bit of a sadist at heart, so what could you do.

A pair of girls wandered up beside the table to watch the game, though one in particular flickered familiarity in Root’s eyes. The two friends flanking the girl’s side claimed dibs on next round.

Yeah, Martine and Jeremy have had their fun.

Jeremy missed his shot by an embarrassing margin, Root catching his overshoot by her shoulder, but Martine did manage to sink in another ball.

Root couldn’t resist eyeing the sleek brunette with smirking eyes as she pounded back her beer in a clean, efficient gulp.

Root knew she was cocky, and though normally not one to show off, it was fun in a really delicious, pleasant kind of way low in her gut to sink both her shots smoothly into the other cups across the table, barely looking away from the brunette’s callous, unblinking eyes. The gaze is wet and muggy, and Root thinks of Fireball and shot glasses engulfed in flames.

After swallowing their losing drinks, Jeremy disappeared after that, and the bathroom was off-limits the rest of the night.

Slapping a fifty on the table, Martine rolled her eyes and stalked off.

With a cheeky grin, Root stuffed the bill into her back pocket.

“You’re playing for cash?”

Root met the girl’s eyes, who finally spoke up, having been silent this whole time as her two friends chattered away with and over her.

Root shrugged. “Not usually, but it makes the win a bit sweeter to skim money off some rich kids.”

She thought she saw a ghost of a smirk make its away over her face.

“I’m Root,” she introduced to the three of them, bouncing the ping pong ball rhythmically on the table. “Three against one?”

The brooding girl chuckled. “Forget it. Joss, side up with the chick.”

“Bitch, you don’t tell me what to do.”

It’s odd how stone-faced a girl can be while still looking five seconds from having an aneurysm out of crippling rage.

“I’ll do it,” the third of them spoke up, striding up beside Root. “I’m Zoe, and the know-it-all with the bad attitude is Shaw, but she’s nicer when she’s drunk.”

Shaw, Root pondered, eyes roaming. It suited her.

“Are we gonna play, or you gonna googley-eye me all night?” Shaw waved halfheartedly at Root, who still held the ping pong ball.

“Oh, darlin’, I assure you I can do both just fine.”

 

xx

 

Shaw can admit a good view when she sees one.

So, the breathtaking cityscape littered with lights and clouds out the window behind Root holds her attention half the game.

And yeah, the other half is focused on that sultry smirk, the flexible, fluid motions of those long fingers around a white ball, the modest dip of a tight button-up shirt under a leather jacket rolled to the elbows, and murky, black eyes that look like they could calculate her every move before Shaw herself knew what she’s aiming for.

She was good, Shaw would give her that.

Joss, on the other hand, sucked ass.

“Carter, I swear to God, if you don’t make a shot soon I’m going to strangle you,” she hissed to the woman beside her as another ping-pong ball scattered off into the corner.

She smacked Shaw’s arm. “Bitch, I’m drunk.”

Shaw rolled her eyes, but across the table, Root lifted a clean eyebrow.

“What’s the matter? You getting nervous?”

Zoe laughed, fishing up the ball from the corner as she lined her shot. “The day Shaw gets nervous is one I want to be around for.”

Shaw grabbed one of the beers that were lined up for Joss to drink and downed it. Joss whacked her again.

“So, Root,” Zoe asks, after landing another cup. Dammit. “What’re you studying?”

Shaw fished the ball from the cup and pretended to not be listening.

“Software Engineering and bioinformatics,” Root answers coolly, flicking her wrist. Sink.

Shaw shoved the cup towards Joss aggravatedly.

Joss and Zoe both obnoxiously whistled in annoying synchronicity, and Shaw rolled her eyes again. “So she’s a geek, who gives a fuck?” It took her a moment to realize she said that out loud, and if the warmth creeping up her face is anything to go by, maybe she was a little drunk.

“Like you’re one to talk, Ms. Kinesthesia,” Zoe teased.

Shaw momentarily considered throwing the ball at Zoe’s head. “Kinesiology.”

“Besides, nerds are hot. It’s so the new thing,” Joss added, nodding with Zoe.

“I hope you get alcohol poisoning,” Shaw said, eyes level and cold at the girl beside her.

Joss just pinched her cheeks and cooed before making her shot. Which she missed. Obviously. Shaw growled, but only nudged Joss aside to set up aim.

“Kinesiology, huh? Sounds kinky.”

When the ball bounces off the rim of the cup, Shaw’s blood is boiling.

“It’s the mechanics of body movement,” Shaw snapped, ignoring the obvious amusement on Root’s face.

“Exactly. Sounds like you could apply quite a lot there.”

When they lost, Shaw stomped across the room and snatched the bottle of wine that Root had been harboring all night, sulking off to the kitchen.

“Sometimes she’s nicer when she’s drunk,” Zoe amended, lips pursed. “Though, personally, I think she’s funnier when she’s being a bitch, so pick your poison I guess.”

“Amen to that,” Joss slurred, tipping her solo cup at Zoe.

Zoe narrowed her eyes. “Girl, since when can’t you hold your liquor?”

A ping-pong ball goes zipping by Zoe’s head, and a war begins.

 

xx

 

After getting knocked twice in the head with plastic balls, Root disappeared with a sweet, “It was nice to meet you guys,” called over the expletives and yelps.

The party was alright. Mostly just students hanging around, drinking, chatting. A few boozers were grinding against each other to the loud music, but it was more reminiscent of awkward fraternities than sexy. Now without beer pong to occupy her time, Root found herself bored out quickly.

It was easy enough to find herself tongue-locked with Martine, fumbling, soft hands under Root’s shirt and stumbling for one of the bedrooms.

“This is the _last_ time,” Martine mumbled into Root’s mouth, scrabbling behind her for the door handle.

“Sure,” Root said easily, her hand already dipping into Martine’s jeans as she backed her into the room. The moan was a irritably loud, and Root bit down on Martine’s lip to quiet her, but it only made the blonde squeak in pain. The girl always was a little too gentle for Root’s preferences.

“Room’s occupied,” came a dull voice, and Martine practically ripped herself off of Root, shoving the taller woman back against the wall.

Shaw was sitting on the bed jerking a game controller around, eyes fixated on the muted TV and a bottle of wine tucked between her legs.

“Hey sweetie.” Root was panting slightly, her chest rising and falling quickly, but she schooled herself enough as Martine grabbed her hand and started tugging her to the door.

Shaw raised her hand in a lazy salute, not looking away from the screen, as Root was dragged to the door. In the doorway, though, Root’s mind hastily switched gears and she braced herself against Martine, shrugging out of the blonde’s grip. “Hold on, I’ll catch up with you in a second.”.

Martine looked like she was gonna start bitching, a petulant frown sinking her mouth, but Root was already shutting the door and crossing back into the room.

Shaw didn’t acknowledge her, but Root plopped down beside her on the bed, crossing her ankles and leaning back on her arms. They sat in silence, passing the bottle between one another, watching the video game unfold. It was an old Call of Duty, Root recognized, and she let the game go on for another couple rounds before opening her mouth.

“I bet I could beat your score.”

Shaw snorted. “Sure.”

“Wanna bet on it?”

“Do you have a gambling addiction?” Shaw shot back, and Root grinned, but only swallowed another pull from the bottle.

After a minute, the round ended, and Shaw tossed the controller into Root’s lap.

Root fucked around for a little, her score barely scraping half of Shaw’s, and Root could feel the arrogant glow Shaw was basking in. Finally, Root asked, “So? If I win, what do I get?”

“What?”

“The game. I beat your score. What’s in it for me?”

Shaw laughed hollowly, but there seemed more entertainment in the corners of her eyes than before. “You’re never gonna get there. You’re KD’s barely one-to-one.”

Root shrugged innocently. “So, shouldn’t be hard to agree on something then. Unless you’re scared.”

The scowl that Root caught when she glanced over her shoulder at the woman only made her smile wider.

“Fine. What do you want?”

“Hmm, how about a lap dance?”

“No.”

“Booty call too forward?”

Shaw laid back into the mattress, sighing. “You’re nuts.”

“Okay, alright. How about… if I win, you give me your number.”

Root was really pushing it, she didn’t even know if Shaw was into girls, but those harsh looks over the beer pong table were too humid for Root to consider otherwise.

She was thinking up other offers, ready to be shot down again, but Shaw groaned. “Fine. Not like you’ll get it.”

“And if you win? What would you like, sweetie? Nothing’s off the table.”

The sigh that collapsed from Shaw was unwieldy, and Root kept up her smirk.

“How about I never have to speak to you again?”

“Works for me.”

It was the closest to a head-swivel Root supposed Shaw would ever allow, but neither girl expressed their surprise.

Thirty seconds later, Root starting tapping out seemingly random sequences on the controller, and before Shaw knew what was happening, Root’s character was floating hundreds of feet above the gaming zone, dropping buckets of grenades all over the map a minute.

Shaw watched Root’s kill-count climb erratically high and dropped her face in her hands.

“Cheating doesn’t count,” she groaned.

“Should’ve specified that, sweetie. Cough up the goodies.”

“You cheated.”

“I still beat your score. A deal’s a deal, sweetheart.”

The flare of irritation across Shaw’s forehead indicated just how much the pet names were driving bullets into her skull, and Root was all too happy to keep them coming.

Root dug her phone out of the pocket of her jacket and hand it over. After a dim hesitation, Shaw typed out a number on the screen and gave it back.

Before Shaw could bail, Root pressed the green button and held it up to her ear.

“What’re you doing?” Shaw hissed, already reaching out to snatch the phone away, but Root hopped up on the bed and held the phone up high.

It was answered quickly, a soft, tired man’s voice bleary through the speaker. “‘ello?”

Shaw was hissing at Root to hang up the phone, practically clawing at the girl’s pant legs, tugging on the corners of her jackets.

“Hi!” Root chirped cheerily. “May I ask who I’m speaking to?”

“Uh. John. Who’s this?”

“Oh, I’m just a friend of Shaw’s and—” Now Shaw was climbing up onto the bed and jumping on Root’s back to snag the phone, cursing at an incredible rate, if Root might add. “—and she asked me to call this number for her because, well, you know how she gets. Girl’s a bit shy. Anyways, she just wanted me to tell you she’s been _dying_ for you to send her some really, steaming, sexy—”

Sameen tackled Root, lurching onto her back and driving them both in a tangle of bodies off the bed. On the other end of the line, John heard aggravated shouting, tumbling and thuds before the line cut off.

In the bedroom, Root was pinned to the floor, Shaw sitting on top of her hips with her hands trapping Root’s wrists above her head.

“You are one of the most annoying people I have _ever_ met,” Shaw grouched, glare in full-swing.

Root grinned up at her, all wide, brilliant teeth and cheeky eyes. “And that’s what makes this so fun, honey. Can I have your real number now?”

Shaw heaved a husky sigh, her eyes welding coals through Root’s like her gaze might incinerate the woman beneath her.

Root noticed the moment that the intimacy of their position dawned across Shaw, because her eyes dropped to Root’s mouth like cement, and that only perked Root’s lips up impossibly higher.

Shaw grunted and pushed herself off the floor, smoothly coming to her feet. She grabbed Root’s phone off the floor angrily, swiping up the number pad and punched in another series of digits. “There,” she growled, dropping the phone on Root’s stomach, who still lay on the floor, smirking. Shaw stalked to the other end of the bed and swooped up the bottle of wine, tipping it up and downing the last of it.

Sitting up, Root shamelessly eyed Shaw’s taut, long neck with heavy eyes.

“Get a little worked up?” she teased, standing up as well and sauntering back to Shaw’s space.

“ _You_ —” Root raised an eyebrow at Shaw’s loud voice, those sick, dark eyeballs consuming her cold.

“I, what, Shaw?”

Shaw didn’t finish her sentence, and instead slammed Root back against a wall, harsh and accusing, and Root’s head painfully bashed back against the wall. Almost dizzy from the impact, it took Root a quick moment to realize Shaw’s lips were swallowing her own, hungry, wet, _sharp_. Shaw’s hands were like bricks against her side, rough and cold, digging into her hips enough to bruise, and oh, Root could get on board with this.

Root hummed into Shaw’s mouth, pushing her body back just as roughly against Shaw, winding her arms behind Shaw’s neck to tug on her long hair. Root couldn’t tell if it was a heated groan or a growl that vibrated in Shaw’s throat, but God, she didn’t care. Root pulled harder again, biting unapologetically down on Shaw’s lip. Instead of a yelp, the shorter woman let out the quietest gasp, her mouth parting just enough for Root lap her tongue into her mouth eagerly, exploring, intrusive.

It wasn’t long before Shaw was wrapping her hands under Root’s ass and hauling her up onto a nightstand, quick and brutal, and _oh_ that was going to bruise her tailbone. Root laughed at the thought, spreading her legs and winding her calves around Shaw’s waist to tug her in closer. Shaw’s once cold hands were scorching against her skin, needy in the way she sunk her nails into Root’s hips, agonizing in the teasing dip of her fingers under Root’s jeans to grab at her ass. Root moaned, finally, which earned a sharp bite on her tongue, and Root snatched her mouth from Shaw’s firmly, instead sliding her mouth down the woman’s jawline, all teeth and her hot, wet breath. Shaw grunted again, squeezing Root’s ass again, rolling her hips into Root’s own pelvis that jerked in response. When Root started sucking hotly on SHaw’s neck, Shaw let out the quietest of breaths, and hastily made way to unbutton Root’s jeans.

“You’re a lot more fun when your mouth’s busy,” Shaw breathed, eyes clenched at Root’s aggressive nips and kisses to her throat.

“There’s plenty I can do with my mouth,” Root whispered into Shaw’s ear, wrapping her lips around Shaw’s earlobe with another bite before flicking her tongue out to sooth it.

Shaw smirked, and wasted no time in dipping her fingers into Root’s underwear.

It was quiet, rough, and desperate, and Root barely shed a word other than a few low, guiding gasps.

“N-No, lower, I— _Oh_ , yes, r-right—”

“Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t you dare _fucking_ —”

“Harder, goddammit, I’m not going to— Oh _fuck._ ”

Shaw was left with swollen, angry scratches splashed across her shoulder blades and littered down her collarbone after it all, and Root smashed their mouths together hungrily when she came, biting the same spot as before on Shaw’s lip. She only registered the slight taste of blood when she slumped exhaustedly into Shaw’s chest, her breathing labored and hoarse against Shaw’s skin.

Shaw patted Root on the shoulder almost sarcastically as she disentangled herself from the tall brunette, wiping her fingers on her jeans, and made move to leave Root to recuperate by herself, headed for the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Root flared, her eyes blazing wild and indignant as she latched a hand onto Shaw’s wrist.

“Uh, leaving.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Root laughed with a feral grin. “When I make promises, I like to keep them.” She tugged Shaw back towards her, hopping off the nightstand and pushing Shaw back onto the mattress. Shaw raised an eyebrow in question, and Root went on as she unbuckled Shaw’s belt and began tugging her jeans down her legs. “When I say I’m good with my mouth, I like to follow through.”

Shaw smirked, and Root tugged down her black underwear.

 

xx

 

Shaw was drunk. It was— whatever. So she was a horny drunk, who gave a fuck?

That’s what she assured herself the next day while simultaneously staring at her phone most the morning, dreading any sound it would make when Root texted her. Or called, for whatever the hell she wanted. If Root thought that just because her tongue wrenched out three implosive orgasms from Shaw in a matter of half an hour, that she deserved a _date_ , she had a lot to learn.

Into the afternoon, the only times her phone buzzed were a couple weary texts from John, bitter, hungover snapchats from Joss and Zoe, and some emails from her TA about a lab for her Motor Development course.

Sunday night, Shaw turned in early, and half-expected to wake up to obnoxiously texts bordering on harassment from Root, but her screen was blank.

Obviously, it was a relief. Maybe Root forgot to save the number, or Shaw made a typo. Maybe Root was straight and embarrassed by her crude behavior. She was far from bothered that, come Tuesday afternoon, Shaw still hadn’t heard from her. Of course, it’s not like she even thought about it. In fact, she definitely forgot all about the ordeal and was absolutely not glowering when she stalked into Starbucks for a desperately needed fix of espresso.

And when she hit the front of the line, about ready to order her drink, a cup was held out to her by a pale hand with immaculately painted black nails and Shaw’s stomach .

Oh, you had to be fucking joking.

“Hey sweetie. Your lip’s healing quite nicely. Wet cappuccino, extra hot?”

Shaw’s glare was worthy of boiling the arctic, and Root’s responding smile was infuriatingly cool.

“That is your usual order, isn’t it?” Root went on, tilting her head slightly. “On the house.”

Grudgingly, Shaw snatched the drink and resisted a sneer. “Are you always this much of a creep?”

Root chuckled, leaning against the counter just such that her polo dipped a little lower, and, against all instincts, Shaw’s eyes flashed onto the cleavage for the barest of instants, but the stretch of Root’s smirk indicated she’d noticed. “I’ve worked here for a while, and I recognized you at the party. You’re quite the regular for overpriced coffee.”

Shaw heaved a sigh, rolling her eyes, and moved to walk off. Yet, despite every fiber in her muscles urging her to the door, Shaw came to a clumsy halt and looked back at Root. She was mid-sentence in greeting the next customer in line, but Shaw cut her off.

“Why didn’t you use the number?”

The customer gave Shaw a dirty look, but Root raised an amused eyebrow. “You weren’t waiting by the phone all this time, were you?”

“Of course n—”

“I’m sorry, I thought our sexathon was more of a one-night-stand type of deal.” The customer’s eyes were bulging, cheeks furiously red, and Shaw’s nausea was rising exponentially. “I’ll be sure to hit you up for another round later tonight.” With that, Root winked pathetically, and turned back to the guest with a wide, cheerful smile. “What can I get you?”

Shaw stormed out of the cafe with white knuckles and an impulse to bash her head against a wall.


	2. things i don't wanna know

Root knew it wouldn’t be long before she saw Shaw again. The girl had been coming to the Mercer Street Starbucks for months now, and it wasn’t easy to forget such a lethal, pretty face, especially when Root noticed her at the party. It had clicked almost instantly.

And, oh, was she far from disappointed by the results. Of course she’d had no intention of using Shaw’s number, but after the night Root gave her, Shaw had to have been at least wondering about Root’s intentions.

Sure, it was slightly manipulative, a bit deceitful. That’s what made it so fun. That was Root’s poison.

Daring to pull the string a bit taut, Root waited until the next day around noon to pull out her phone.  _ Hey pumpkin. Good morning so far? _

Root was strolling into her biotechnology lecture only a few minutes later when her phone vibrated in her pocket.  **It was, until now.**

_ Your forced discontempt makes me wet. _

**Your overt come-ons give me a migraine.**

_ Want a massage? Might help with the tension. _

Root didn’t get a response for the rest of the afternoon, nor the next couple days. Shaw didn’t come back into Starbucks, at least not during Root’s shifts, but she heard from Shaw again that coming Friday. 

Friday’s were relatively simple, just a couple hours of lectures, and another chunk of the day holed in the library under a flimsy guise of “studying,” before Root headed back to her on-campus apartment. Martine was either gone or passed out in her room, because darkness greeted her on the other side of the door when she came back in the early evening.

It had been a few days since Root had even seen her bed, but she pointedly walked past her closed bedroom door without a glance, beelining for the fridge and a glass of chardonnay. Root was nothing if not classy, all crystal glassware and modern furniture as she settled into her leather couch in the living room. She anticipated a quiet night, but her phone’s vibration made her pause halfway through lazily rolling a joint.

**What time are you getting off tonight?**

Root smirked.  _ Depends. I was thinking of picking up a new vibrator in a bit, unless you have a better idea _ .

There was a 97% certainty that Shaw was rolling her eyes, and it made Root grin.

**I meant off work.** And then,  **Are you a sex-addict?**

_ Are you offering a fix to satisfy my cravings? _

Root wondered how far she’d have to push it before Shaw gave up. Though to be fair, it was admirable Shaw had kept up with her so far. When she didn’t get another response, Root typed again.  _ I’m off duty tonight, fortunately. Why?  _

Root considered adding a sly remark about being taken on a date, but she was more curious to see what Shaw would come up with on her own. Waiting, she finished wrapping up the joint, twisting off the end. Damn, she was good.

**Where do you live**

Not even a question mark. The girl was ballsy, Root would give her that, and maybe more forward than Root had given her credit for. Drumming her fingers on her thigh, she pondered leaving Shaw hanging a little longer, but her better judgement got the better of her. 

_ Alumni Hall. Room 1501. Door’s open. _

Sure, she should actually get some authentic studying done considering this was her only free night that weekend, especially with midterms creeping around the corner, but it’s not like she wasn’t just about to waste the night away with  _ Grey’s Anatomy _ , sketchy coding to replenish her funds, and, of course, the classic goods.

She was halfway through the joint when Shaw came through the door, brash and hasty, like if she slowed down her feet might turn her back around. Root raised an eyebrow at her demeanor, and Shaw in turn lifted her own at the smoky room, the piece in Root’s hands.

They were both silent, for an antagonizing minute, staring at one another, until Root held the joint in offering.

Letting out a breath, Shaw dropped her bag on the floor and collapsed on the couch beside Root, accepting the hit.

“You smoke in your room?”

“Smoke detector’s disabled, and I have… an arrangement, of sorts, with the RA.”

Shaw shook her head, and took another drag. “I’m not gonna ask.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not nearly as fun as ours.”

Shaw laughed, head tilting back lazily, as she handed it back over to Root. “We have an arrangement now, huh?”

Taking a long pull, Root shrugged. “You tell me,” she said stiffly, still holding the smoke stubbornly inside her mouth. Shaw’s gaze dropped down to the tendrils of fog leaking from Root’s lips, and the taller brunette started blowing rings into her face.

Shaw grunted, swiping her hand through the air irritably, and looked away. 

They passed it between them, for a little longer, until it was nearing just a dud, and still, Shaw maintained their silence. Root was dying to press and tease, taunt the woman like a dog with a bone. Just a little shifting, the v of her shirt would droop, or her loose jeans would ride just that much lower down her hips, but she resisted the prying, the analysis, and waited for Shaw herself to say something.

Shaw took the final drag, savoring it, holding it tight in her mouth like Root had as she stubbed the roach out on an ashtray beside her. Root watched her movements, carefully, inquisitively, but still said nothing, and neither did Shaw.

Instead, she turned, grabbed Root by the loose collar of her shirt, and tugged their faces together, millimeters apart. Root raised her eyebrows again when Shaw didn’t go in straight for the kiss, but rather she hesitated, and then Shaw was gently exhaling the smoke into Root’s mouth, and,  _ oh _ , that was hot.

She almost forgot to inhale it back herself, because Shaw was stuffing her back against the couch, pounced on top of her like a predator, arms braced on either side of Root’s head, but still, she hovered.

Root couldn’t keep it shut anymore. “Mm, I knew you liked the idea of a booty call.”

Instead of the trademark glare, or twitching fury, Shaw actually smirked, this lopsided, cocky grin, and Root couldn’t help her beaming smile in return.

Someone once said that a kiss was the beginning of cannibalism, and oh, how Root let Shaw devour her.

Root was so far gone and such an undone, wrecked mess with Shaw’s wrist pumping into her that she didn’t even have spare thoughts to worry about the three-thousand dollar couch they were fucking on. It was the first time in  _ months _ that Root had moaned so unabashedly, clawing at Shaw’s back with bruising welts in her wake, and just as her thighs started quivering frantically, Shaw hopped back, and hooked Root’s calves over her shoulders and buried her face between Root’s legs.

Root only got louder, and suddenly Shaw was tangling out manic orgasm after orgasm from her.

Gasping, Root had to swat Shaw away from her sensitive parts. “N-No more, I… I need to…”

The smirk on Shaw’s face was the smuggest Root had yet seen, yet her voice was soft when she murmured a low, “Okay,” against Root’s mouth, kissing her slowly.

It was ridiculously tender after such forceful, intense fucking, and it had Root’s head reeling.

“For the record,” Root mumbled into Shaw’s mouth after some time, “I would like to clarify I’ve been tested recently, and I don’t have any STD’s.”

Shaw blinked down at Root, eyebrows furrowed deeply, before she snorted. “Think it’d be a little late for that, anyway.”

Root shrugged. “It’s only fair. To be honest, I already did a little research on you, so I figured you deserved to know.”

Shaw raised an eyebrow, shifting her weight to her other arm. “Research?”

Root nodded, eyes still closed in recuperation. “Just a couple background checks, quick glance at medical records, school records, et cetera. By the way, your recommendations from your biomolecular pre-medical internship were startlingly impressive.”

“I would say you’re really starting to turn out a creep, but you’re not the only one that knows how to use a computer.”

This peaked Root’s interest, and she peaked an eye open, nodding for Shaw to go on.

“Okay, my friend knows computers, but still. Wanted to make sure I wasn’t gonna start screwing a weirdo.”

Root put on a sweet pout. “Aw, you don’t think I’m a weirdo. How sweet.”

Shaw rolled her eyes, sitting back up, and unbuttoning her pants. “Whatever, just get this over with and fuck me.”

Intrigued, Root pursed her lips. “It’s adorable when you think you’re in charge.” Before Shaw could question that, Root was bounding off the couch and into another room.

Rolling her eyes, Shaw laid back on the couch, drumming her fingers against her stomach boredly, the other hand behind her head.

Shaw could feel Root striding back over, more than she heard, but it was the cool click of metal around her wrist, that really signalled Root’s return, and Shaw looked up at those impossibly black eyes.

“How do you feel about bondage, Sameen?”

X

So, meeting kind of went like that. It wasn’t messy, or drawn-out miscommunication and sloppy emotions running rampant.

Honestly, it was the easiest pattern of hook-ups that Shaw had ever gotten herself into. The fact that Root seemed too busy half the time to even see her and hated post-sex cuddling as much as she did, made Shaw allow it to keep going past the third time, her typical stopping point.

Root was  _ easy _ . Yeah, she had the sex-drive of a thirteen-year-old boy with too many magazines under his bed, and her jokes were awful and incessant, but—

Well, Root didn’t care.

She didn’t seem to care about anything, hardly even her grades, so yeah. Shaw was cool with that.

It was the closest to perfect she was gonna get.

There were times that Shaw wondered, though. It was hard to believe that someone so dismissive of studying had made it so far into an engineering program. There were the days where Root cornered Shaw into a bathroom stall in the library, her tongue halfway down Shaw’s throat and her hands kneading bruises into her ass when Shaw started mumbling distractedly.

Aggravated, Root pulled away with buried eyebrows. “What?”

“Don’t you have your bioinformatics lab right now?” Shaw panted, not releasing her hold from Root’s long, tangled hair.

Root rolled her eyes. “No.” And she dove instead to start assaulting Shaw’s neck, and oh, Shaw had never had to work so hard to hold in a moan in a public space.

“You did… last week,” Shaw argued, a bit breathless.

“Do you want me to stop?” Root challenged, switching gears and running her hands down to the front of Shaw’s jeans, and the shorter brunette bit her lip, contemplative. Root understood the encouraging tug on her hair as permission to drop the subject, and so they did.

So she hardly showed up to her classes, and Shaw scarcely saw Root cracking open a textbook. On the rare occasion that she did, Root barely glanced at it and typed away headache-inducing sequences of code into her laptop and paid no mind to the pages in front of her. Maybe most of her work was online, but Shaw was fairly sure that programming methodology required a bit more of a paper trail, but it’s not like she was in any position to start questioning Root’s educational habits.

Every time she did, well, Root distracted her, or even went so far as to challenge Shaw with a callous, “The act is cute but don’t pretend like we’re anything but fuck buddies, Sameen.”

And, yeah, maybe Shaw was starting to think they were something like friends, because there had been an instance or two that Root stumbled across Shaw cramming for a test in the library, and sat down to quiz her for an hour or so before they disappeared into a quiet corner. Or the time that Root invited herself over to rummage in Shaw’s pantry for some popcorn and sat beside the shorter girl in silence, watching TV while Shaw worked on a paper. It was far from romantic or friendly by any means, but the fact that they could sit together without vibrating from hormones was supposed to mean something, right? 

Shaw knew that she herself didn’t see it that way, but  _ Root _ had to see them as something, did she not?

Shaw was catching a late breakfast with John and Joss one morning before a lecture, when Joss brought it up. “How’s the sex friend doing by the way? You still seeing her?”

Shaw nodded around a mouthful of eggs. “Yeah. She’s— y’know. Fine. She’s Root.”

“What does that mean?” John whispered to Joss.

Shaw resisted an eyeroll. “I dunno. Sex is good. You want a step-by-step review? Her fingers, for starters—”

Joss stuffed her bagel into Shaw’s mouth. “I don’t want to know how kinky you get, that shit’s better left unsaid. I just mean you never invite her over.”

“She comes over sometimes.”

“Sex on the couch when no one’s home doesn’t count.”

Shaw rolled her eyes. “What, you want her to come meet the ‘rents?”

Joss laughed. “That’s just asking to scare the girl off, no one needs that kind of disaster.” Shaw flicked a piece of bacon in Joss’s hair, and the girl yelped. “Look, all I’m sayin’,” she went on, swiping her hands through her hair hastily. “Is that you should bring her around. She was fun at the penthouse. What about Zoe’s party on Friday?”

A noise like a growl came from Shaw’s throat. 

“I do have her number,” John added thoughtfully, and Joss clapped her hands gleefully.

“Ooh, perfect. Text her and say—”

“ _ Fine _ . I’ll ask her.” Shaw shook her head, shoveling the rest of her eggs into her mouth. 

xx 

Root was sipping a glass of cabernet, writing out code for a new module, when Shaw asked her.

“What are you doing Friday?”

“You, probably.”

Shaw smacked her arm.

“Ow! What?” Instead of waiting for a response, Root reached out and twisted Shaw’s nipple, and the shorter woman yelped.

“Did you just  _ squeal? _ ” An ecstatic grin spread Root’s cheeks, and she was near overflowing amusement,.

“You pinched my nipple!”

“I haven’t heard  _ that _ in bed.”

“You—” Shaw began, but Root reached out with a dangerous smirk as if to do it again, like a mad scientist too eager to experiment, but Shaw began swatting angrily at her hands. “Stop it, no, quit it.”

Pouting, Root sunk back into her crook of the couch and huffed, reaching back for her wine. “Fine. If I’m not fucking your brains out, probably nothing. Or I might do some molly with Jason uptown, but I haven’t decided yet.”

Shaw couldn’t tell if Root was kidding, and decided to skip over it. “Uh, right, well Zoe aced her criminal justice midterm and because she needs everyone to know, she’s having a party, rented out some bar. Her and Joss wanted to know if you were interested.”

Root lifted a teasing eyebrow. “They did, or you?”

Shaw rolled her eyes. “Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“Them.”

Root grinned again. “Then sure, sweetie.”

Shaw tried to ignore the decisive  _ then _ in that statement, and even convinced herself that she succeeded.

xx 

Root was really, really drunk when Shaw showed up at her door Friday night.

It was a terribly long story, too long to explain to a baffled Sameen, but it ended with a couple bottles of wine that absolutely could not be left to waste, and well, Root liked to consider herself a martyr for the cause. 

“Hey pumpkin,” Root drawled, tossing her arms haphazardly around Shaw’s neck and planting a sloppy, wet kiss on her mouth.

Even a trashed Root, though, was a good kisser, and it took Shaw a few moments to gather herself enough to pull away, pushing Root by the hips, holding her still.

“What the hell, Root?”

“What? Kiss me.”

“You taste like a vineyard, Jesus, how much have you had?”

Root lazily held up two fingers.

“Two drinks?”

“Bottles,” Root corrected, and hiccuped.

Shaw grumbled, running a hand through her hair, before pushing them both inside Root’s apartment, dragging the tall woman to the kitchen. “If you don’t show up, my friends are gonna bitch and call you over themselves, and the last thing I need is an unsupervised conversation between you idiots.”

It kind of seemed like Shaw was talking to herself, but Root didn’t care. She let her hands trail aimlessly up and down Sameen’s sides, teasing, playful, flirty. She giggled to herself every time she touched a sensitive spot for Shaw, and the shorter woman would tense and attempt to push Root away, but it only brought Root in closer, her front smushed against the length of Shaw’s back as Shaw was in the middle of—

“What are you doing?” Root questioned, head tilted and peering over Shaw’s shoulder.

“Making coffee.”

Root snickered. “Coffee doesn’t chase away the gay, Sameen. You must know that.”

When Shaw turned around and stuffed a cup of fresh brew into Root’s clutches, she looked entirely unamused. “I don’t know what that means, but drink it. It’ll sober you up enough to at least stay awake through the night.”

“Mm, not true,” Root mumbled as Shaw began practically forcing the cup to tip into her mouth.

She choked and sputtered a little, and eventually slapped at Shaw’s hands, taking the mug away to add milk and sugar.

After she’d mostly finished the coffee, Shaw grabbed a water bottle from one of the cupboards and dragged Root out the door.

xx 

When Root started groping Shaw on the subway, she stomped on her  foot.

“Mm, I love it when you get so rough.”

“Yeah? How ‘bout I stab you next?”

“Cute, Sameen, but I’m even hornier now.”

Shaw slumped her head against the pole.

xx 

“You’re here!” Joss and Zoe together tackled Root and Shaw as the pair came up the stairs of the rented-out club, and it took an exasperated amount of fumbling for Shaw to make sure that Root didn’t tumble right back down the stairs. 

“We are,” Root crooned, maintaining a somewhat coherent air about her that Shaw had to respect at least slightly. 

“What’re y’all drinking?” Joss asked, taking hold of Root’s hand and leading her to the bar. “I promise we’re hella stocked up.”

Shaw cringed, and reflexively took Root’s other hand, pulling the taller woman back into her own space and away from Joss. Carter could get you slurping body shot after body shot if you weren’t careful, and the next thing anyone knew you were vomiting into a toilet with a sombrero on your head. 

“We’re all set, Joss.” Knowing the indignant protests were forthcoming, Shaw added, “We pre-gamed a bit at Root’s.”

Narrowed eyes darted between the two brunettes suspiciously, but Joss let it drop. “Fine, but we’re doing baby guinnesses before the night’s over, and I’m not takin’ no for an answer.” Before Shaw could object, Zoe instead ushered the group of them to a booth out of the crowded bar-area.

“So, Root, Shaw been keeping you tied up somewhere? We haven’t had the chance to grill you properly.”

“Oh, there’s been plenty of—” Shaw’s steel-grip on Root’s thigh tightened painfully, and Root cleared her throat, smirking. “No, not at all, I’ve just been busy with… this and that.”

It was sorely vague, but Joss and Zoe didn’t seem to mind.

“How about you? I heard about a criminal justice midterm? Sameen said you flunked it.”

“I said what?”

“Shaw!”

“ _ I did not _ —”

Zoe began pelting lime slices at Shaw, and Root smiled.

Once the woman ran out of fruit, Shaw growled and picked bits of sticky membranes out of her hair, rubbing them against Root’s pant legs, who smiled cheekily. 

Root got chatty when she was drunk, Shaw was quickly realizing.

With an arm playfully slung around Shaw’s shoulder, Root was recounting story after story of obscene, horrendous, and mortifying customers at Starbucks, from irrationally complicated descriptions that finally led to a snarky, “ _ So, you just want a latte? _ ” to requests for a frappuccino with no ice.

“Ooh, this one time,” Root continued, toying with a lock of Shaw’s hair (she’d slapped the hand away at least four times by now, but the woman was relentless). “During a rush after the 8am lectures, this sleazy hipster-type stockbroker told me that he wanted to take me out outside and ‘kick my fucking ass.’ Now  _ that _ was a fun one.”

“Did you go outside with him?” Joss asked, slurping on her margarita.

Shaw beat her to it with a snicker. “Of course she did, after calling the cops and having him escorted off the property.”

Root smirked. “Not much of a street-fighter, that guy. He really had horrible form. Honestly it was a little boring to dance around like we did.”

Again, it was times like these that Shaw couldn’t gauge how serious Root was. The lanky nerd didn’t seem to have much fight in her, not with her dorky jokes and lack of muscle, but, Shaw supposed, she was ridiculously flexible and strong in bed. Wouldn’t be that far of a stretch. Still, a computer geek doing with a street-fighting skills under her belt? Sure, it was hot as hell, but objectively concerning

“Okay, okay, enough chit chat, it’s time to get these asses twerking. Chop chop, let’s go!” Zoe clapped her hands, shooing everyone out of the booth, but Shaw and Joss only exchanged looks of distaste, laughing, before eventually scooting out.

Dancing with Root was… 

Well, it was fun.

More than once, Root would dip her hand teasingly under Shaw’s butt, always just a tad too gentle with her squeezes, until they weren’t gentle at all and her hands were between her thighs, and before Shaw could even gasp out an objection at the publicity of it, Root was pulling her hand away and skimming Shaw’s sides. Root might be a skinny giant made of dangling limbs and uncomfortable innuendos, but the expert dips of her waist and distinctive rhythm of her undulating hips had Shaw’s pupils blown and wide as they danced, and Root knew it.

It was in her clumsy smirk and glittering eyes.

Shaw, vaguely, thought she could watch that smile form for days.

“Bathroom,” Shaw shouted suddenly. She cleared her throat, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. “I, uh, gotta go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”

“Want company?” Root teased, high-pitched over the music, her eyelashes glittering in the playful lights.

Shaw shook her head abruptly, with a forced smile, and caught Zoe on her way to the bathroom. “I gotta pee, will you watch Root for me?”

She nodded with an assuring thumbs-up.

In the bathroom, she washed her hands reflexively, an attempt to keep herself busy and distracted.

She was being stupid. Shaw didn’t get attached, or emotional about any of this shit. She always bolted once they reached the point where she realized she was supposed to start acting like she  _ cared _ about the person she was fucking.

And it wasn’t with a cutesy or romantic, stubborn denial that she stared in the mirror and told herself that that was not what was happening here; it’s not like she instantaneously gave a fuck about Root — she didn’t, honestly. There was nothing she was trying to talk herself out of, or a miraculous epiphany of emotion that she’d never felt before. 

Sure, she wondered if maybe that was what was happening, but, thinking about it, no, Shaw knew she wasn’t instantaneously developing feelings.

No, the headache at hand was that it all worked too  _ well _ . Root was only too willing to make their arrangement as emotionless as possible, she handled Shaw’s friends as smoothly as brewing coffee, and, fuck it, the woman was fun. She was a pain in the ass, but she knew how to give a good time, and it had been a while since Shaw felt like she was sexually on the same page with someone, not stifling her acute, specific desires for a rougher game. 

Shaw was comfortable. If she could have it her way, well, this was the kind of package deal that Shaw might keep around for years. It was exactly what she wanted. A detached, satisfying fuck buddy that occasionally helped her study for her midterms and made coffee when she was too lazy to get off the couch.

But she wasn’t blind. Root wasn’t  _ like _ her.

This was only going to go a certain way.

If everyone was like Shaw, the world would be a perfect place. Maybe with a slight spike in homicide rates, but besides that, everyone would be on the same page and Shaw wouldn’t have to face the fact that, sooner or later, Root was going to start digging her nails in like claws and beg, and not in the fun way.

That alone was the entire reason for the three-nights rule.

Best case scenario, she would just get bored and leave. Which was unlikely, considering how many orgasms Shaw could string out of the woman in thirty minutes.

It was just calculated probability, statistics, that this would end with Shaw as the bad guy and Root pressing for more.

When was it anything else?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bless crista @atsirc for being the cutest human alive and my cherished beta


	3. eyes like highway signs

On Halloween, Root was tripping on shrooms.

It wasn’t until the whisper of “Are your hands blue right now, or am I imagining that?” that Shaw realized Root wasn’t sober.

Her stealth at concealing her state would’ve been impressive, objectively, if Shaw weren’t annoyed.

Halloween fell on a Monday, and although Shaw had already sailed through her midterms, Root wasn’t finished yet.

So they made a deal — Shaw would go out with Root to another rich-brat party uptown if they would leave before midnight and avoid the bottom of the bottle. It was a win-win, supposedly; Shaw would get her beauty sleep, and Root would study and be well-rested for her exam the following day, and they agreed that neither of them would dress up for some stupid, irrelevant holiday.

Shaw was insistent on Root studying, because, as she’d pointed out numerous times, she’d never seen Root read a book this semester alone. She was convinced that Root was too cocky for her own good and needed that kind of external push to motivate herself into studying.

It’s not that she cared, per se, about Root’s grade. Rather, Shaw just liked Root, she was chill, you know? And Shaw could recognize that this was one of those things other people needed their “friends” to do for them — encouraging reinforcement. Shaw might not be able to empathize with that kind of dependency, but she was different. It was science, to put it simply. 

People tended to fit certain molds, trends of humanity derived from discipline and societal patterns, a popularly shared morality. Shaw lacked a certain… instinct that most around her had always seemed to naturally have. She could understand empathy and morality on a conceptual basis, but not psychologically. Morality was less of a born sense, but rather a studied observation. Shaw didn’t feel things the way other people did, but she knew how to carry out socially proper etiquette, as well as map out thought patterns and motives behind why people did the things they did. She understood emotions, very well, in the mathematical sense.

Shaw was just beginning to get a grasp on Root, on her systematic methods, but then it  all slipped out in shambles when Root pulled shit like gulping down psychedelic mushrooms the night before an exam and going to a party.

It was— 

Whatever.

Shaw needed to emphasize she didn’t  _ care _ in the natural sense of the word. She was just pissed Root dragged her out in the first place, just to escape to her own little volatile world. Because, fuck it if Root thought Shaw was gonna babysit her ass.

“Are you kidding?” Shaw had asked in the backseat of the cab, jaw cocked, when Root giggled out the confession.

“I can be whatever you want me to be,” Root drawled right back, her smile wicked and boundless.

Shaw rolled her eyes and watched the cityscape blur out the window.

 

xx

 

On the contrary, Root apparently wanted nothing to do with Shaw.

The second they stepped inside the penthouse, Root bolted, calling out Martine’s name for a single’s game of beer pong.

Shaw wasn’t jealous — she didn’t get jealous. It was a predictable emotion, easy to spot on others, but she herself lacked its toxicity. 

But Shaw was just  _ annoyed _ , because what was even the point of Root dragging her out tonight if Root wasn’t interested in being around her?

It’s not that she depended on the geek for company, but Shaw wasn’t a social person. She didn’t mingle at parties or flirt around. The only times she went out to something bigger than a small get-together were when Joss, Zoe, or John hauled her ass from her dorm.

So Shaw grabbed a beer and disappeared to Lambert’s bedroom to play Call of Duty. Maybe she’d fuck up his score, if she got bored enough.

Shaw knew people well enough to understand that she  _ should _ be monitoring a fellow student tripping on shrooms by themselves at a rich college party, and she certainly was capable of doing so, but it was all too easy to spitefully just… not.

Martine could handle it.

After maybe an hour or two of nothing much more entertaining than a couple or two that stumbled their way into the room before Shaw cleared her throat and kicked them out dryly, Shaw wandered out of the room. Lambert was drooling, passed out on an expensive suede couch that someone had spilled red wine on at some point, and his blonde friend was nowhere to be seen. The party had dwindled slightly, but the people that remained had kicked it up enough on their own.

Shaw half-heartedly wandered around, looking for Root, and she thought she’d found her when she walked in on Martine going down on a leggy brunette. Upon noticing Shaw, however, the brunette sat up to throw a pillow aggravatedly, and Shaw shut the door.

Another walk-around led to nothing. A second started to make Shaw irritated. She gave up halfway through her third search, grabbed her jacket.

Of  _ course _ Root bailed without telling her. She’s not sure why she’s even slightly surprised. 

Not to mention she looked like a lonely, pining idiot that got stood up on a date.

Which was absolutely  _ not _ what happened.

Frankly Shaw was never the one to get ditched or left behind. Shaw did that, she bailed, she backed out. To be on the other side of that was… just weird. It was annoying, yeah, like an unreachable itch or waiting in line to piss. 

So Shaw shuffled around in Lambert’s pockets for cash for a cab, and stormed out of the penthouse, angrily thumbing the elevator button.

 

xx

 

Root was running.

She couldn’t stop.

The carpeted floor beneath her was flimsy, distant, unreliable, like it’d dissipate if she slowed down the slightest.

She didn’t know where she was. Doors blurred passed her, plaques and panels, windows, they all oozed together like wind and sand.

Her heart never stopped hammering in her chest, rising only louder like a monstrous weed, until its rapid successions overtook the thuds of her feet on floor and there was nothing else to hear.

“ _ Root _ .”

Hanna?

“ _ Root.” _

It was Hanna. 

It was Hanna, but Root couldn’t slow down, couldn’t bring her legs to cycle slower, couldn’t see where she was, couldn’t read the room numbers.

“ _ Root _ .”

Her face felt warm, like vapor, like humidity, but she couldn’t stop running.

She never stopped running.

She wasn't sure that she ever would.

Until she blinked her eyes open to Shaw grabbing her by the shoulders and hauling her upwards to a sitting position.

The fluorescent lighting mixed with the headrush made her vision swirl, and Root felt like vomiting.

Shaw must’ve noticed her bulging mouth and queasy eyes, for the next thing Root knew she was dry-heaving into a plastic trash can beside the couch.

Shaw started to hold her hair back, until she just wrapped Root’s hair up in a tie on top of her head, and Shaw disappeared into another room.

_ Hanna? _

Root threw up.

 

xx

 

When Shaw came back, Root was laying back down, her eyes boring like empty saucers into the ceiling. 

Root wasn’t thinking anything at all.

Perhaps it was a trick she’d learned over the last year, or maybe there was so little left worth mentioning in her that her brain couldn’t stand to even talk to itself anymore.

“You were crying in your sleep.”

Root said nothing.

“Who’s Hanna?”

Root blinked.

She turned over to face the back of the couch, and she said nothing at all.

Root didn’t hear Shaw leave, disappear back to her room — it was her dorm, to be fair — but she knew she was gone.

She could feel it, in the empty weight of the room, the way the ceiling concaved like it withheld a vacuum. 

She never stopped running.

 

xx

 

Root skipped her classes the next day.

She set her alarm, she got dressed, she stood outside the Silver building of arts and science, and she almost stepped inside for her 8am class.

Instead, she snagged a free coffee from Starbucks, went back to her dorm, and worked on her latest coding project.

If she was lucky, she’d score a good grand off this gig, but it was proving more time-consuming than she’d anticipated.

On the other hand, these days hacking felt like the only thing she knew how to do anymore, and Root’s fingers blurred over her keyboard.

She didn’t remember to eat until a few hours past noon, and she was too lazy to head to the dining hall and too frugal to order food, so she rummaged in her drawers for adderall before resuming her work.

Within half an hour, her veins were humming and her brain exercising a level of acute attention beyond a normal functioning capacity.

In the following two hours, she finished a project that should have taken her all night.

It was productive, at the very least.

Martine came home early, with a scowl like offset geometry, and she hardly spared Root any communication besides a grunt before she disappeared into her room.

Root’s phone was silent all day.

Aside from a few alerts on stocks that she kept an eye on, and a text or two from Jason about new products, her phone’s screen remained dark.

And over her grave would Root be the first one to say something after that mess.

 

xx

 

By Thursday, Sameen smoked a joint with John, and texted Root for a booty call.

When Root opened the door, Sameen’s hands found their way into Root’s jeans in under ten seconds, and that was that.

And Shaw never asked Root about Hanna again.

 

xx 

 

November swung in with New York’s harshest wind turbines, overturning umbrellas and whipping frigid air against cheeks. It was Shaw’s least favorite aspect of New York. The gray clouds and biting chill only made her long for tropical coladas and sand whiter than snow promising to encumber them all.

By noon, she was already on her third coffee, but it had long since gone cold after her Applied Human Anatomy lecture, too busy scribbling notes mechanically.

Tossing it away, she headed for the Starbucks on Mercer, half expecting to find Root behind the counter with her usual order (not that she incidentally memorized Root’s work schedule), but the obnoxious geek wasn't around. Stepping out into the cold with her drink, Shaw nurtured her bad habits and fished a cigarette from her pocket, her back to the wind as she tried to light it.

The breeze was unrelenting, her lighter weak and low on fuel, and irritably Shaw tossed the useless plastic into the trash can. Before she could stuff the cigarette back into the box, a skinny, familiar arm stretched from just out of Shaw’s peripheral and offered a flame.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” Root mused with a raised eyebrow, poking out from a secluded crook in the building's exterior.

Exhaling, Shaw rolled her eyes. Root’s dramatic entrances were more than irritating, to say the least. “I don’t usually. What’re you doing out here?”

“On my break. I like the cold.”

“Weirdo.”

Root smirked. “Your actions speak louder, Sameen.”

Shaw rolled her eyes and took a drag, after which Root held her hand out in request. Thinking of Root’s ridiculously addictive personality, all the drugs she pumped into herself, Shaw snorted. “Forget it.”

“Aw,” Root pouted. “Don’t tell me you care now, Shaw.”

Inhaling to keep from an angry retort, Shaw grumbled and fished a second cigarette from her pocket and handed it over.

“Thanks sweetie.”

Shaw shook her head, facing down the other end of the sidewalk. The sex was only getting better by the week, the more avidly that Root paid attention to what exactly Shaw liked, particularly  _ how _ she liked it, topping in a way that Shaw never quite knew she wanted to be the submissive recipient to. The fact was that… there was a certain level of sexual, vulnerable trust that Shaw had never quite experienced.  

Shaking her head, Shaw inhaled another harsh hit, flicked the ash.

“What’re you doing tonight?” Shaw asked eventually, her cigarette inching to a close.

Root tilted her head. “Little bit of this and that. You?”

Shaw rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that’s not vague.”

“It’s what I do best, Sameen,” Root said with a sly smile and a lopsided wink.

Shaw’s expression didn’t change.

 

xx

 

Shaw hung around Starbucks for another couple hours, typing up a paper for her physiological bases of physical activity course, working her way through two more coffees before Root clocked out around seven.

Root watched the grumpy brunette sulk over her computer throughout the shift, only meeting Root’s gaze when she dropped off another refill on the capuccinos, albeit with Shaw's lazy salute and bored eyes.

Shaw had seemed to be on her way out, just passing through for her espresso fix, and Root had regarded Shaw curiously as she followed Root back inside, settling down, as if waiting for Root’s shift to wrap up.

Root wasn’t particularly close with any of her coworkers — most of them detested NYU students anyway, for their obnoxious orders and hipster high-noses, but even a couple of them smirked at Root when she came back from giving Sameen her drink, with wiggling eyebrows.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Grace mused, lips pursed. “Didn’t peg you as the romantic type.”

Root blinked. “Oh. Shaw’s not — We’re not —” But Root didn’t really know what they were. Or weren’t, in this case. Some odd line between friends and fuck buddies. It dawned on her, though, that it wasn’t quite Grace’s business but… perhaps the teasing was called for. Root wasn’t the most social of workers; she punched in, she took orders, she smiled, she punched out. She barely even let out a peep every time the espresso machine let out a blade of steam over her wrist and etched a second-degree into her skin like a tattoo. With a low glance down, before back up to Grace’s amused face, Root forced a casual smile. “We’re just classmates.”

After hanging up her apron, Root looked to Sameen’s table, watched the hunch of her shoulders, the way a hand reached up to rub irritably at a strained neck, the loops of hair twisting about her collar.

Root walked out without a word.

 

xx

 

Shaw caught up quick enough.

Root had only made it a block by the time she heard Shaw’s voice calling for her, the smack of Shaw’s boots on the sidewalk growing louder behind her. Root stopped where she was, on the corner of Broadway, but didn’t turn around.

“Hey, asshole, thanks for telling me you were leaving,” Shaw said, re-shifting her bag over her shoulders and zipping up her hoodie.

Root only raised an eyebrow, levelling an almost cold look on the shorter woman. “You following me everywhere I go now?”

To anyone else, it would be taken as biting and harsh, but directed at Shaw, it was only confusing and uncertain. Shaw’s face exposed just as much, anyway, and Root found a grim corner of her  _ wishing _ that she could inflict something more distasteful within Shaw. The woman never seemed affected, always breezed through life so effortlessly. How efficiently she passed her classes, popped open textbooks and memorized sequences of anatomy and human behavior. Shaw made friends so carelessly — her interactions so unweighted and aloof, like she couldn’t give less of a damn what anyone expected from her, nor what they wanted.

It struck something bitter inside Root. Something ugly and low.

Shaw seemed to interpret the jive as something awkwardly flirtatious, and she rolled her eyes. “If you’re going to suggest something like a leash and collar, you can forget it.”

Root’s face settled slightly, and she bit her lip, an attempt to tame the vivid chaos inside of her.

She blinked against the breeze and exhaled quietly.

“You hungry, though? I was gonna go to this place on West 3rd that sells burgers better than sex.”

When Root looked at Shaw again, at the neutrality absorbing her face, those dark, solid eyes, grounding like zip ties, Root thought about the silence everyone was so scared of.

But how terrified Root was of all this noise.

“Is this a date?” Root asked tiredly.

“Of course not. I’m just hungry.”

“Then sure, sweetie.”

 

xx

 

Root realized halfway through her burger, when Shaw had finished hers in the span of about a minute and a half, that she had never eaten with Shaw before.

Something like delight took over Root’s face, an amused smirk with raised eyebrows as Shaw licked her fingers clean off, picking up the onions and peppers that had fallen into the foil plate.

“What?” Shaw asked, once she’d crumpled up the foil. “You gonna finish that?”

Yeah, she’d been planning on it, but Root experimentally pushed the rest of her burger towards Shaw, and watched the smaller woman bend over and inhale yet another meal.

“Normally,” Root began, dropping her chin into her palm with curious eyes. “I’d be pretty disgusted, but right now I’m just incredibly turned on.”

Shaw looked up at Root, blinking.

Forty-four seconds later, Shaw dropped a few bills on the table and dragged Root out the door.

(Root stared at her hand wrapped up in Shaw’s fingers like it was a weapon articulately designed for her own downfall.)

 

xx

 

“Hey, that’s Shaw’s friend, right?”

Zoe turned around from the drink she was mixing. Looking to where Peter was gesturing, Zoe’s eyesight leveled on Root. 

Zoe snorted.

“What?” Peter laughed along, but with a tilt.

“Yes, that’s Shaw’s friend. Her name’s Root.”

“Root? Like the bottom of a tree?”

“I think it’s a computer thing.” Zoe sipped at her mojito, testing for flavor, before she sprinkled on another few mint leaves. “What about her?”

“She’s hot. She seeing anyone?” Peter leaned against the counter, elbow tucked to his side as she smiled coyly across the room.

Again, Zoe laughed. “You can ask Shaw about that one.”

Shrugging, Peter stood.

 

xx

 

“Uh. What?”

“Root, your friend. Is she seeing anyone?”

Shaw took a long, harsh gulp of her mojito before wiping the back of her mouth. “Is Root seeing anyone,” she repeated dryly.

“Yeah.” Peter smiled encouragingly. Damn, the guy was attractive. 

Shaw took another drink, glancing around the room. She made eye contact with Root, whose smirk grew sultry as she bit her lip teasingly, before giving a wiggle of a wave as someone dragged her away.

“Shaw?” Peter snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Are you drunk? Doin’ okay?”

A heated wrist sprung up and twisted Collier’s wrist, Shaw leveling him with a clean glare. “Doing just fine. Thanks,” Her tone suggested anything but gratitude, but she dropped his hand nonetheless. “No, Root isn’t seeing anyone. Not the dating type.”

She turned back into her mojito, tipping the glass up down her throat.

Peter chuckled, nudging Shaw’s side. “Not exactly what I had in mind, if I’m being real.”

That truly was the last thing Shaw wanted to know.

“Whatever. I need a new drink.”

 

xx

 

“Zoe, how long does it take you to make a simple goddamn cocktail?”

Joss sidled up between the two girls, whistling. “Damn, girl, who’s holding out on you in bed?”

Rolling her eyes, Shaw easily took the muddler from Zoe and began juicing the ingredients herself. “No one,” she said coolly. “I’m fucking thirsty, and Zoe’s worse at this then you are.”

Zoe looked beyond amused, while Joss just pursed her lips disapprovingly, eyes narrowed like she was squashing bugs.

“I take it Peter found you.”

Shaw momentarily hesitated, before continuing on with her muddling. “Yeah, so?"

“What’d Peter do?” Joss whispered to Zoe. 

“Nothing,” Shaw snapped.

“Shaw’s jealous,” Zoe clarified.

Now, Shaw actually laughed. “I am not jealous.”

Joss whistled again. “Oh  _ damn _ , she is. Shit... Seriously?”

“ _ No _ .”

“He was asking about Root.”

“ _ I’m not jealous _ .”

“Oh, sweetie,” Joss crooned with a sympathetic pout.

“Don’t call me that.”

Zoe and Joss looked to one another a bit worriedly.

“I’m not jealous, okay? Root can fuck whoever she wants. I never wanted anything serious, and neither does she. End of story.” The look Shaw levelled them both with was rather convincing, and the pair of girls had never known Shaw to get jealous over anyone else before, not even Mike McHottie from freshman seminar. Maybe girl really just was impatient and particular about her mojitos.

“Well, good then,” Joss affirmed, straightening out her shirt. 

Zoe nodded in agreement and Shaw rolled her eyes.

“Especially ‘cause Root seems to really be taking a liking to Collier,” Joss went on, looking over her shoulder into the other room.

Shaw finished her muddling before she poked her head around the corner pillar, catching sight of Root across the room laughing with Collier. Expressionless, Shaw shrugged at Joss and Zoe and finished mixing her drink.

Zoe smirked and Joss sighed, but Shaw carelessly poured her drink into a rocks glass, taking an unwieldy, grim sip.

 

xx

 

Shaw was in the middle of a pong game with Zoe when Root trailed up alongside Shaw with a smirk. 

“Your eyes tell a thousand words, Sameen,” Root murmured, examining Shaw’s form as she took the shot.

Shaw rolled her eyes, the ping pong ball sinking smoothly into the cup. “Yeah? How’s that?”

The corner of Root’s mouth lifted, and she nodded across the room at Collier. “Oh, please, I saw the smoke from your ears.”

Shaw laughed again, despite Zoe scoring another shot against her. “What, you think I’m jealous?”

Root shrugged innocently, leaning against the table before Shaw swatted her away from the cups and reorganized. “Wouldn’t be a far stretch. It’s okay if you are.”

Lined up for the next shot, Shaw let her hand fall down to her side, and looked Root level in the eye. “Look, that’s cute and all, but I don’t do jealous.”

“No?” Root raised her eyebrow smugly.

Shaw condescendingly dropped her chin lower. “No, I don’t, because you and I both know that no one makes you come like I do.”

Root blinked, once, then a long series of her eyes fluttering, her lips slightly parted, her face torn into flustered shock. Shaw smirked, lifted her hand, and flicked her wrist.

The ball hadn’t even sunk into the cup by the time Root was tugging on Shaw’s arm with a hasty, “Game’s over,” called behind them to Zoe’s confused, solitary self.

 

xx

 

It was a Wednesday when Shaw came back to her dorm. Couple hours after noon. Root had bailed in the middle of the night the evening before, and hadn’t answered Shaw’s texts that morning, but Shaw figured the girl was actually at class for once, or studying if she was optimistic.

It would be something short of a miracle, at the very least.

So when Shaw pushed her door open, stuffing her keys back in her pocket, to find Root slumped on the couch with her feet dangling over the back and head hanging over the floor, Shaw sighed. Upon the shutting latch of the door, though, Root lurched up, only to roll off the couch with a clamber of grunts and yelps, and maybe the sound of cloth tearing, but Shaw couldn’t be sure.

Shaw dropped her bag on the floor, eyebrows furrowed. “What are you doing,” she deadpanned.

Struggling over the couch to an upright sitting position, Root rubbed irritably at her nose, sniffling. “Suffering.”

Shaw raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you always?”

Root shrugged and rubbed at her nose again, eyes drooping closed.

Shaw stepped further into the room, hanging up her coat. “It’s a little late in the day to still be sleeping, even for you,” Shaw remarked.

Root yawned and only kneaded at her nose again, snorting as if to clear her sinuses.

Shaw’s eyes darted to Root again, only more scrutinizing, speculating, scanning across Root’s face and form like a security tool.

Before Root could blink, Shaw was bound across the room and grabbing Root roughly by the chin. “Look at me — Look me in the eye.”

Root resisted, squirming under Shaw’s stare, looking down or sideways — anywhere but at Shaw.

“Dammit Root,  _ look _ at me.”

Root stopped fighting, staring at the floor, until her dark, warm eyes blinked sluggishly up to Shaw’s. But all Shaw could see were the bloated, empty pupils bouncing back.

“What did you do this time? Snorted some ecstasy again?” Shaw sourly pushed Root away from her, shaking her head.

“Well, coke, actually. It’s wearing off by now.”

Shaw stopped pacing.

The thing is — 

A key disconnect in Shaw’s psychological make-up was the lack of communication between Shaw’s external experience of trauma, and the internal experience of being traumatized.

She could watch her father at gunpoint, blink, and forget to feel anything about it.

She remembered the traumatic experiences. But somewhere in translation, the reaction to the action never made it back around.

Shaw’s stare on Root was hard. It was dirty. Something your mother wouldn’t let into the house. It was cold and it was scalding.

Catching Shaw’s shift in attitude, Root sat up more, rolling her eyes. “It’s not a big deal, I didn’t even like it that much.”

Shaw’s jaw ached. “So you’re saying you’d never tried it before?”

Root’s eyes again rolled in their sockets, and Root stared at the window. “I mean, I have, but it doesn’t matter. It’s been months since I did it last.”

“You don’t like it, but you did it anyway,” Shaw echoed, nodding with clenched fists and a barbaric scowl. 

“What’s your problem? I’m not even addicted to anything — I never do the same drug twice in one month.” Root chuckled, as if something about Shaw’s volatile stance and the weight of tension in the room was funny.

Shaw bit down on the inside of her cheek, running a hand over her face. “No, Root. You’re not addicted to any one thing.” Shaw shook her head at Root, staring hard. “You’re just addicted to feeling anything like yourself. You’re just addicted to… everything.”

It resembled a switch the way walls behind Root’s eyes skyrocketed, barriers folding up, gates slamming shut.

“What I do is none of your business,” Root said evenly. “Don’t start acting like you give a damn about me.”

Shaw scoffed, pacing once again in disbelief. “Don’t make this about me, this is about you and your incessant need to keep yourself from feeling anything.”

Root laughed, loud and wide enough to suffocate the room as she stood up. “Oh,  _ you’re _ gonna talk to me about  _ my _ feelings now, are you? You, Sameen Shaw, the emotionally constipated robot?”

Shaw’s nostrils flared, but she said nothing.

“I know what I’m doing,” Root said calmly. “Stay. Out. Of it.”

“You don’t, Root,” Shaw said quietly, her voice like air conditioning. “You really don’t.”

“Did you ever consider, Shaw,” Root snapped, snatching up her bag and shouldering it as she crossed around the couch to the door. “That maybe you don’t know me at all?”

With crossed arms, Shaw looked sideways, her jaw wired shut. “Yeah, Root. That much has always been clear.”

“Then let me teach you this,” Root said lowly, her voice menacingly sweet in that twisted way Root had about her as she stepped up into Shaw’s face, the barest hints of a snarl tinting her harsh smile. “I could not give less of a damn about you or what you think of me.”

When Root slammed the door on her way out, Shaw could only think of entropy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love crista more than anyone bye. let me know what you think! :)


	4. it would come out all wrong

Rubbing irritably at her forehead, the beginnings of a migraine shivering into her scalp, Root pushed her way into her dorm. Finding peace in the quiet of her empty dorm, Root locked the door behind her before crawling sluggishly onto the couch, forearm dragged over her eyes.

She was unsure as to how long she laid there in a blurry silence, not quite sleeping but not entirely awake into reality, before a provocative pounding on her door erupted the serenity.

“Go away, Shaw,” Root called out, flipping onto her stomach and burying her face.  Christ, the last thing she needed was to continue that wreckage of an exchange.

“It’s Jason,” came back, brute and gruff, and Root lifted her head hastily with narrowed eyes.

Debating whether to leave him to wonder if he’d heard her at all, and simply ignore his presence, Root eventually clambered off the couch, rubbing her nose.

“How did you even get past security,” Root grumbled as she opened the door. “Or would I rather not know?”

“Cut the games, Root,” Jason said, his voice low. Finally, Root dropped her eyes to Jason’s hands, concealed by the lapel of his jacket, to the firearm wrapped in his fingers.

Arms crossed, eyebrows raised, Root sighed. “Tell me you’re joking.”

Stepping forward, urging Root back into the dorm, Jason shut the door behind him, never taking the gun’s sights off of Root. “I wish I was.”

Root rolled her eyes and mockingly raised her hands. “This is really just embarrassing. You realize this isn’t a CBS drama series, right?”

“Shut  _ up _ for once in your life,” Jason snapped, his gun-hand beginning to quiver. “You know why I’m here.”

Head tilted with a sickeningly sweet smile, Root hummed. “Do I, though?”

With an impatient growl, Jason shook his head. “Dammit, Root, the  _ money _ . Do you know how much you fucking owe me?”

Without batting an eye, Root crossed her arms and leaned against the back of the couch. “Ten thousand, nine hundred, and forty-two dollars.”

Jason blinked, a sputtered momentarily, before nodding distractedly. “I — Uh — yeah. And I’m not leaving until I get it.”

Root sighed. “You’re gonna be here for a few days, then. I’m laying low.”

“I don’t give two shits,” Jason shot back, stepping closer and emphasizing the quivering weapon in his sweaty hands.

“That’s nice. I’m still not making any transfers until I clean up my last trail from a client installation through Chase banking. It got too much spotlight, I can’t make any moves for a while.”

“Are you missing the part where I’m pointing a gun at your head?” Jason nearly shouted.

Root shrugged. “To be fair, you’ve always had shitty aim.”

“You really wanna wager those chances?”

“Oh,  _ please _ be my guest, I can’t wait.”

“You—” 

Someone knocked again on the door, a long series of harsh raps, and Jason cocked his gun, levelling it more evenly against Root, his other hand reaching up to press a finger to his lips.

Root mimicked a zipper over her mouth boredly.

After a moment of silence, the knocks angrily repeated themselves, and Root rolled her eyes at the veins popping from Jason’s forehead.

“Root, I know you’re home, answer the goddamn door.”

Eyes wide, Root’s chest clenched, ribs like needles, like drowning, like suffocating. 

“You really think I’m gonna let you have the last word?” Shaw shouted, beating the door again.

Root watched everything fall apart.

“Don’t answer her,” Jason hissed, closing the gap between them and pressing the barrel of the gun cold against Root’s forehead.

Root didn’t even blink, but she had no intention of letting Shaw anywhere into the room. This was her mess, her problem. This was a reflection of her life around the corner of where hers and Shaw’s intersected. This was, to Shaw, irrelevant, and Root would be damned to let anything change that.

“If you don’t open this door, I swear to God I’m kicking it down.”

Root closed her eyes. Never much of a believer, she found herself praying anyways. Hoping. Longing. Desperate.

“You think I can’t do it?”

Root opened her eyes, her eyes pleading with Jason’s angry scowl. 

“I’m counting down. Five.”

Root shook her head slowly, never breaking eye contact with Jason.

“Four.”

Jason pushed the gun rougher against Root’s skin, his face twisted in conflict.

“Three.”

“ _ Please don’t _ ,” Root murmured, and Jason frowned, like he couldn’t understand where this hasty shift in demeanor came from. How long had Root and Jason known each other? Eight years? 

“ _ Two. _ ”

Jason’s hand shook, vibrating against Root’s skull.

“ _ One _ .”

In a quick movement, Jason spun away from Root and towards the door, furiously yanking on the handle to a startled Shaw looking ready to barrel the door down. Without missing a beat, Jason’s hand lunged out for Shaw’s forearm and tugged her into the room. After slamming the door, he shoved Shaw into a corner still in his line of sight, but away from Root’s pale, petrified position.

“Uh, what’s up with the...?” Shaw asked uneasily, glancing back and forth between Root and Jason as the tall boy leveled his aim on Shaw.

Significantly less sarcastic than Root, but easily just as casual, Shaw raised her hands half-heartedly with a raised eyebrow.

“Jason,” Root said, her voice catastrophically cold like the floor beneath her feet quaked in fear. “If you don’t stop pointing that fucking gun at her I won’t fucking hesitate to—”

The corner of Jason’s mouth twitched, almost into a sadistic smile. “Oh, now you’re talking, are you?”

Root’s fists clenched at her sides, nails digging into her palms like razors, her jaw stiff and sore like it was rotting inside her flesh.

Shaw watched the exchange between the two, like television, like a disconnected storyline. Idly, Shaw thought of popcorn.

“Put the gun down,” Root warned, her eyes spoiled with frantic rage.

“I need that money, Root. It’s that simple.”

The boiling stare she imprinted Jason with was a weapon of its own that transcended any categorical resemblance to existing ammunition. Even Jason looked like he was doubting the ability of the weight in his hand against Root, against a hurricane, against shipwreck, against a natural disaster.

“You’re not getting shit like this. Put that gun back on me, or honest to God I will smash your skull in.”

Jason looked like he believed her, but still, his hand shook around the weapon, refusing to back down.

“Are you crazy?” Shaw said, staring at Root. “Do you have a death wish?”

Root ignored and took a slow step towards Jason. “Put the gun down. If you so much as think of pulling that trigger…”

Jason’s arm straightened menacingly towards Shaw, sinister against Root’s advancements.

“Put. The gun. Down,” Root repeated. Again, she stepped forward.

“ _ Stop _ moving,” Jason shouted angrily, his reserve dissolving exponentially, his anxiety leaking.

Root always loved a good gamble, didn’t she?

Only two, maybe three meters away, Root put another foot forward, and Jason snapped.

As he swivelled his arm away from Shaw and towards Root, Root lunged and Jason’s finger instinctively collapsed around the trigger.

There was a moment of nothing, a glitch in time, a lag of events, that Shaw felt in her gut like wind.

But Root was pounced on top of Jason, fist rising before it rushed back down against Jason’s face, crushing his nose like bones shattering against cement. Jason cried out, but Root was coming back down on him again, and again, and again, and again. Root’s fists splintered with each hit, scalding and wet with Jason’s blood hiccupping out of him like rapids foaming in a river.

And then Shaw was on Root, yanking her by the waist, lurching her off of Jason’s lazily still form.

“Let  _ go _ ,” Root snarled, her voice still horrifically low and cold.

“Hey, you’re fine, he’s done, he’s down,” Shaw gasped, struggling to keep Root under her control, to keep her contained.

Smearing Jason’s blood against herself and along Shaw’s arms, Root fought back against the smaller woman feverently, desperately, hectically.

“Root,” Shaw murmured, squeezing Root tight enough to make breathing difficult, but still not quite tight enough.

It was sudden, that way Root slumped in Shaw’s arms, like a switch, like the immediate break in rain at the end of a storm.

Face-to face, Root stared down at Shaw’s chest, her eyes emptily wide, stiller than Shaw had ever seen her. With Jason’s blood splattered over her face—  

Root looked infernal.

Not quite sure with what to do with Root’s eyes boring hopelessly into Shaw’s, like sockets of a skeleton, Shaw kept her arms taut around Root’s form.

“You’re okay,” Shaw said flatly.

Root blinked.

“You’re okay.”

Root blinked again, and then once more, before she disentangled herself from Shaw’s arms, wiping at her forehead, and drifted back into her bedroom, gone just as quickly as she’d come into Shaw’s life.

Shaw licked her lips, cocking her jaw, as she looked at Jason’s groaning body on the floor as he rolled over, any attempt to relieve his pain. “Right,” Shaw mumbled, scratching at the back of her head. “I’m the one that’s gotta clean this up.”

Scooping up the gun on the floor, Shaw popped the revolver open, glancing into the rounds, only to — 

Only to find the goddamn thing empty.

At first she only cursed, but then Shaw chuckled, shaking her head as she ran a hand through her hair. “Jesus Christ, I should be getting paid for this.”

Jason moaned again, but Shaw only kicked him. “Get up. Get out of here.” Unresponsive, Jason just mumbled incoherently, and Shaw bent down to slip her hands under his shoulders and haul him to a sitting position. “Stand the fuck up, and go,” Shaw grunted, irritably pushing herself away from him once he seemed able to pull himself to his feet.

“Next time,” Shaw said, her voice flat. “I won’t stop her.”

Shaw didn’t care much for the turmoil bubbling in his eyes, the torn dilemma he was fighting against himself with, before he stumbled out the door, and she imagined Root wouldn’t care much either.

“Fuck,” Shaw sighed, tossing the gun around in her palms. Without a long-term solution, Shaw stuffed the gun into her bag. The last thing either of them needed was for Root to come looking for that thing in the morning.

That left the bloodstains on the linoleum floor, and Shaw clenched her fists. A hasty scrounge through the dorm led to absolutely no cleaning supplies, leaving Shaw with popping open a can of beer and running some hot water over the floor. 

There was something unsettling mundane about tossing blood-speckled paper towels into the trash with the stench of beer up to her elbows.

Now, Shaw simply stared at Root’s half-ajar door. Stay or go? Stay or go?

Stay or go?

Stay?

 

xx

 

When Shaw entered the room, shutting the door softly behind her, Root was…

She — 

She never stopped running, did she?

Eyes vacant like “ _ Help Wanted” _ signs but just as guarded as private property.

“Root?”

Sitting on her bed, Root stared at the wall, her pale skin lifeless and dry.

“Do you, um, want me to stay?” Shaw tried, stuffing her hands in her pockets, hovering. 

Root’s eyes wandered upward to the ceiling, like she was searching for — something. Something Shaw couldn’t see.

Shaw precariously placed herself on the corner of bed, subtly at the edge so as to not test Root’s shaky boundaries, but simply a present, nearby body.

Root’s chin dropped, and she watched the floor now.

Unsure of what else to do, tentative, Shaw slid closer to Root. Still, the woman didn’t move, didn’t respond. Shaw took it as… encouragement, maybe? Stretching her arm between them, Shaw brushed their hands together, side by side.

Root lurched from where she sat on the bed, leaping to her feet and crossing the room. “I think you should go,” Root rushed out, refusing to meet Shaw’s dark eyes.

It wasn’t hurt, what Shaw felt. It was a frosty absence of anything at all, as she stood, regarding Root like her volatile state might annihilate the city.

“I’ll see you later, Root,” Shaw murmured. “You can call me if… if you need anything.”

When Shaw shut the door, Root crumpled. 

 

xx

 

The next week, Shaw didn’t go home for Thanksgiving. Her father away on a business trip, and her mother enjoying the luxuries of cheap vacation prices on a traditionally stay-at-home holiday, there wasn’t much point for the American celebrations.

Shaw didn’t know what Root’s plans were. She toyed over the idea of stopping by with a cheap bottle of champagne, some pierogi takeout, if Root would answer the door, if Root would even be there. It irked Shaw how right Root was in that Shaw knew so little about Root. Who were her parents? Were they around? Did they know about the shit Root got herself into? Siblings? Cousins?

In the end, Shaw spent the night FaceTiming Joss and her family with a box of Chinese takeout and Netflix in the background, her notifications on and at full-volume.

 

xx

 

Home for Root was the bottom of a bottle of Jack.

She started drinking at two in the afternoon.

Around four, a distant aunt from her mother’s side called her — it was that one time of  year that the single relative reached out to the forgotten orphan lost somewhere in the family tree, as if suddenly remembering she existed.

For the first time in seven years, Root ignored the call.

And she tipped the bottle down her throat.

 

xx

 

Root did care.

That much, Shaw understood. No matter how much the furious, cold geek wanted to deny it, she cared about Shaw. And Shaw wasn’t quite sure which of them that unnerved more.

The week after Thanksgiving, thirteen days after Jason’s fiasco, Shaw went back to Root’s dorm.

Shaw’s last class on Tuesday’s ran late until well after nine in the evening, and Root’s dorm was suggestively closer to campus than Shaw’s. It was a quiet arrangement that they had fallen into ages ago, and it didn’t mean much of anything beside Shaw snoring in Root’s bed, her feet frigid on the off chance that they skimmed Root’s shins under the blankets.

It didn’t mean anything (and even Shaw was getting a little sick of those words).

Root was usually passed out by the time Shaw let herself in. Root had always left the door unlocked on Tuesday’s — it was easier than any implications of illegally copying the dorm key. On her way over, Shaw had wondered if Root would even leave the door open after… everything. Shaw didn’t think of the suggestiveness of the unlocked dorm.

Out of instinct than anything else, Shaw found herself glancing over flat surfaces inside (counters, mirrors, tables) for anything powdery or other awkward residues. Not that she’d even know what to do, if she found any.

Root slept quietly. She always did.

Shaw sometimes wondered if she was dead, would check her pulse.

Her breath struggled to even stir the tendrils of hair snaking her face, and the woman laid like a deadweight on the mattress. She might move in her sleep twice or three times in a given night.

(Unless there were nightmares. But they didn’t talk about those.)

Normally, Shaw would shower and stay up a few hours with her Applied Human Anatomy lecture notes, but she quickly found herself stripping off her shoes and jacket and collapsing beside Root into the bed.

The woman didn’t even flinch in her sleep.

Sleep poked and prodded at Shaw, impatient. If she was going to be reckless and take an early night in, it might as well be productive with a good, deep REM cycle, not staring creepily at a friend while she slept.

(A  _ friend _ .)

But Shaw only propped her arms under her head and regarded Root silently. Softly, like the minimal rise and fall of Root’s chest, like the breeze on the subway.

Shaw didn’t think much about it when she reached a hand out to brush Root’s hair from her face, letting her thumb graze along a sharp cheekbone. She could’ve retracted then, and Root wouldn’t have been the wiser, but she didn’t.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t help it, or that it was a reckless action she found herself caught up in before she could think better of it.

She just didn’t care much about what she should and shouldn’t be doing anymore, fussing over what Root might misinterpret..

With Shaw’s hand cupping her cheek, Root finally blinked her eyes open groggily, crookedly.

“Mm, hi,” she mumbled, not quite nuzzling into Shaw’s touch but not jerking away either. Shaw took that as acceptance, perhaps. Something delicately resemblant of approval

“Hey.” Shaw tucked some hair behind Root’s ear.

“How was your class?” Root yawned, squirming a little under the covers for warmth.

Shaw smiled, slightly. “It was fine. I found one of your energy bars in my bag halfway through the lecture.”

“Gross, it was probably weeks old.”

“It was,” Shaw chuckled. Her hand still hadn’t pulled away, and she rubbed her thumb in a single circle again, as if for emphasis. “Can I kiss you?”

Root furrowed her eyebrows, and Shaw swore that the woman’s ear perked like a dog. It made Shaw smirk, and she only raised an eyebrow in challenge, but she couldn’t deny the pale uncertainty in her gut.

Shaw never asked permission. She didn’t need to. It was painfully obvious when they were both on board with clawing the clothes off one another’s hips with eager wrists and begging breaths.

Shaw wasn’t sure that they ever just kissed, though, and left it at that.

Typically, she avoided it, in similar arrangements. Kissing someone meant you cared on multiple platforms, and it preached commitment and adoration. But sometimes Shaw just really enjoyed kissing Root’s soft mouth, like a fresh teenager under a bridge with red cheeks. It’s not that it meant anything, but kissing felt good. It was objective.

If anything, Root set stricter boundaries about their affair than Shaw did.

Some ways, it was easier, she supposed.

It made kissing Root easier, without any worries for implications or misleading promises.

But was it so horrible for Shaw to admit that maybe… she missed her?

It wasn’t a heavy ache on her chest, or harsh wind slicing her pores. It was an absence in a routine, a small crack in the sidewalk that wasn’t there before. It was skipping her 2pm cappuccino, or forgetting her pen at the library. 

It didn’t hurt, the way Shaw missed Root. It was just a vacancy Shaw wasn’t quite sure why she let grow so empty in the first place.

Root rubbed her eyes blearily, and she nodded.

The lack of innuendo, of a sly, teasing quip, Shaw could only attribute to Root’s half-asleep capacity.

Shaw didn’t wait a beat before pushing forward and catching Root’s mouth with her own. Her hand rested on the back of Root’s neck, and the entire ordeal was ridiculously gentle. Root's mouth prodded back, wet lips open and gentle with Shaw. Beneath Shaw's fingertips, Root was warm, and Shaw didn't want to let go. But  Shaw knew Root would bite through Shaw’s lip soon enough out of spite at the absurd pace, hostile and impatient. Sure, Shaw liked sex with zip ties and toys, and she liked all the bruises and scratches.

Still, sometimes kissing Root in the quiet of an empty dorm, with nothing but scattered city noise groaning beneath them, the taste of Root’s bottom lip wet against the tip of her tongue, well — she didn’t need much more than that.

Shaw pulled away before Root could stop the kiss herself.

 

xx

 

Though they didn’t celebrate Christmas, Shaw went home for winter break. Her mother was beginning to fuss about not having seen Sameen since midsummer, and Shaw couldn’t put it off much longer.

She cared for her parents, she did.

They never quite resented her for being different.

After all, she was brilliant, riding a full scholarship and cruising easily onto medical school as they had always dreamed she would. Besides for a few schoolyard hiccups with broken noses and black eyes, Shaw never got into much trouble. No drugs, she went easy enough on the alcohol, grew up responsibly around the house and picked up at job at sixteen for her own self-sufficiency, as well as chipping into monthly bills.

In hindsight, her parents couldn’t have asked for much more in a daughter with inclinations for something more than mediocrity. It was easier that she never seemed emotionally attached to anything, wasn’t it? No worries about distracting boyfriends or getting caught up in silly, dramatic friendships. 

About halfway through high school, they started referring to her apathy as an early-onset maturity beyond her years.

Shaw played along.

When she shouldered through the front door of the light brown bungalow, heaving a suitcase behind her, Shaw’s mother tackled her in the entryway and peppered kisses over her face.

 

xx 

 

Root stayed in New York.

With Martine gone for the twenty-nine days of break, the suite was emptier than usual.

Root went through eleven bottles of wine the first week, and thirteen the next, before she started buying vodka again.

The third week, she wired Jason twenty grand from a recent lottery-winner’s bank account in Wyoming, disguised as tax and federal collections, before falling asleep, chin sticky with scotch.

 

xx

 

**How was your Christmas?**

Root glanced at her phone, debating whether to ignore Shaw’s message, but Root was too hungover for games.

_ Action-packed. Gifted myself a new vibrator. _

**How generous of you.**

_ It’s double sided, for the record. _

**Ha. In your dreams.**

Before Root could respond, Shaw sent another.

**My mother is asking who I’m texting and if it’s my future husband.**

Root laughed out loud, a genuine smile stretching her cheeks as she bit her lip.  _ You should tell her that he does wonders with his fingers. _

**Don’t flatter yourself.**

_ I have no need to. Your body charms my talents enough on its own. _

**Congrats, you managed to find my clit.**

_ Don’t lie, Sameen. We both know you’re already wet for me. _

Across state lines, Shaw pursed her lips. So, it was gonna be that kind of party was it?  **What makes you so sure?**

_ No time to play coy, baby. I know you’re thinking about my tongue between your legs. _

“Sameen? Would you pass me the onions?”

**Anyone with motor functions can eat a girl out.**

_ Can just anyone make you come three times in ten minutes? _

Shaw crossed her legs.  **You make a lot of promises.**

_ Come here and I’ll show you _ .

“Sameen! The onions!”

Shaw nearly dropped her phone at her mother’s shout and scrambled for the onions.

**I gotta go.**

_ I know you’ll be thinking of me when you fuck yourself later. Maybe I’ll send you some visuals for inspiration. _

“You are  _ very _ clumsy, you know that?” Shaw’s mother scolded, shaking her head as she chopped the vegetables in the kitchen.

 

xx

 

The first day of spring semester, Shaw came home after class with powder that looked more like it came from a snow globe than the sky sprinkled her hair, and she shook out her head as she stepped off the elevator. As she unhooked her keys from around the belt loop of her jeans, reaching out to stuff it in the keyhole, the door swung open, and Root gasped in Shaw’s face.

“Oh hey, how was your break…?” Shaw’s aloof, almost friendly question fluttered out as she took in the gleam of Root’s pale forehead, the way her own hair was plastered against her cheeks, the scarce, unhealthy tinge of red to her cheeks, the exploded, wide pupils. “Dude, are you okay? You look like shit.”

Though momentarily caught off-guard, Root cleared her throat, and with shaky hands she shouldered her backpack more tightly and nodded skittishly. “Yep, I-I’m fine.”

It wasn’t exactly like Root to so obviously lie, or if she did lie, then Shaw wouldn’t figure it out for weeks, and likely only if Root told her herself that she hadn’t been honest. This quivering, frightened shell of Root, sweating and puffing out short, harsh breaths and wiping nervously at her forehead… just wasn’t Root.

(But maybe it was.)

Before Root could stumble to the elevators, Shaw grabbed her arm. “Wait, seriously, what’s up?”

The scattered bingo of Root’s eyes refused to meet Shaw’s, rolling around in her sockets nervously. Shaw grew increasingly aware of the rhythmic pattering under her thumb, from Root’s wrist, and Shaw stared down at her hand, reflexively counting.

“Nothing, Shaw, I just have to go,” Root managed, though her voice was hoarse now, she seemed to control better the fluctuating, feverish pitch.

Shaw looked up from Root’s wrist, a frown settling between her eyebrows, and decisively pushed Root back into the dorm. “And do what? Get high? Or you already are?” 

The pained, misunderstood twinge of Root’s eyes caught Shaw’s, and it only furthered Shaw’s confusion.

“I just, I have to  _ go _ .” Root tugged on Shaw’s grip, moving to go past her, but Shaw sidestepped and blocked her.

“Go where?”

“ _ Fuck _ , Shaw,” Root abruptly shouted, tugging her hand from Shaw’s grip and turning around, slamming her hand against the wall, her bag sliding off her shoulder in the process and sliding across the floor. “I need to  _ go _ , I need to  _ leave _ , I-I can’t, I can’t—” Root keeled over then, hands on her knees, gasping for breath like she’d just sprinted up the flights of stairs. “ _ Please _ ,” she choked out, digging her nails into her knees, swallowing hard.

Before Shaw could do anything, much less register enough coherent thought to say something for god’s sake, Root crumpled to the floor, sliding against the wall, and buried her face in her hands, mumbling. “I can’t… I… I can’t.”

Shaw’s pressed her lips tightly together, pushing her hands in her pockets, and watched Root carefully. To put it frankly, the girl was a trainwreck — a hot mess didn’t even come remotely close to describing the shivering, volatile slump of Root’s shoulders, or the chilled sweat caking her neck and face. This was so unequivocally different from Root’s meltdown with Jason, that Shaw felt even more out of her depth than she ever had.

“What can I do?” Shaw finally asked.

Smacking the back of her head against the wall, Root shut her eyes tightly, her hand scrabbling at her own chest as if it might alleviate… something. “I… I need…”

“What?”

Root’s throat bobbed as she swallowed, brows furrowed in concentration, until she gasped out, “My meds. Th-they’re in my bag.”

Shaw was already bounding across the room, seizing hastily at Root’s leather bag and tearing through the pockets. Of course it wasn’t going to be easy — there were four different sets of orange bottles, only three of which actually had Root’s birthname on them. Restlessly she snatched the whole bag and dropped it on the floor beside Root, pulling the bottles out. “Root, which is it? Which one?”

Root took a bottle (with her name on it) and fumbled with the cap until Shaw swatted at her hands and popped it open herself.

Shaw started fishing around in her own bag behind her for a water bottle, but upon presenting it back to Root, the woman had already dry-swallowed the pill.

Root didn’t move, just rested her head back between her legs, burying her face, wheezing.

She didn’t know what else there was to do.

“You’re having a panic attack,” Shaw murmured. She understood that much, the signs were easy to check off. The matter, supposedly, was what kind of anxiety Root experienced. Was it tactile? Were all of her senses far too amplified, and a single comforting touch would send her to the rails? Was it more depressive, and rather a hug was exactly what she needed? A tight, compact security around her shoulders? Or would she implode like last time, internalize and put as much distance between her and Shaw, like a scared animal?

Shaw calculated the possibilities, watching Root sob into her own arms, struggling to breathe, and she decided.

Tentatively, she laid her hand on the small of Root’s back. She didn’t rub it around, didn’t tap her fingers, she just held herself there. Let her presence be known, let Root feel grounded. It hadn’t worked before, but Root was experiencing an entirely new kind of broken than before.

And maybe she needed a different comfort this time around.

Shaw couldn’t… empathize, exactly, with what Root was feeling. This panic, or the way a human touch brought light and warmth to her core. But she understood the humane need for it — kind of like the way she needed coffee before noon. It was specific to a certain kind of person.

Shaw wasn’t the type of person that one usually sought out for this kind of solace, and it wasn’t because she didn’t know how to handle it. Rather, it seemed there’d always been an instinct in others that she couldn’t quite care the way they wanted her to, they way they needed her to. So they found someone else to satisfy that mundane craving.

But maybe, if all Root needed was for her to sit there, and give her that soft touch, well…

Shaw didn’t mind all that much.

A peek through the parted curtain of Root’s hair revealed an exhausted, pale face, but she was breathing a little easier now. Whether it was Shaw, or whatever pills she just inhaled, she couldn’t be sure.

Frowning, Shaw grabbed the bottle from Root’s lap. Lanoxin. Shaw began wracking her brain for common brands and their uses, flipping through mental pages and pages.

“I have a heart condition,” Root mumbled, and Shaw glanced away from the label.

Shaw looked at Root. “Lanoxin… that’s a digoxin, isn’t it?”

Root nodded.

“Isn’t that for heart failure?”

Root sighed, running her hands over her face tiredly. “I think so. Heart rhythm problems too. I have atrial fibrillation.’

“AFib?”

“... Um, sure.”

Shaw leaned back, rolling the bottle around in her palms. The cool plastic felt like hardened ash against her skin — dry, delicate, symbolic. Obviously, she wasn’t a doctor — not yet, at least. But any moron knew enough that recreational drugs and alcohol was a shitty mix with this kind of medication, and it was only bound to make the heart work twice as hard just to stay alive.

Again, Shaw looked at Root. The slope of her nose, the weight of her eyes, the pale texture of her mouth. Shaw thought about the irritation and rage that had morphed Root all over two months ago, the last time Shaw had brought up the drugs. Maybe Root was right. Maybe it wasn’t Shaw’s place. Certainly, Shaw had never been in this kind of position before, and Root was the one instance where Shaw was actually being begged to  _ not _ intervene.

It was a silver platter, wasn’t it? What she had always wanted?

Shaw bit her lip. “So, was that an episode, or a panic attack…?”

Wringing her fingers together in front of her, Root shrugged. And then, “Little bit of both.”

“Does this happen a lot?”

Instead of answering her, Root finally looked up, giving Shaw a short smile. “I love it when you play doctor, Sameen, but it’s okay. I’m fine.”

The look in her hazy eyes said it was everything but okay, but Shaw supposed she wasn’t quite equipped for either answer in the first place.

 

xx

 

Root spent the night, curled fetally in Shaw’s bed. It was a bit odd to sleep together that way without Root’s fingers stickily wiped against Shaw’s shorts, nothing but their panted breathing and sweaty bodies until they collapsed into sleep.

Root was always good about spending the night — she didn’t crowd Shaw, didn’t outstretch her legs over the mattress and tug Shaw in.

Somehow, by ways Shaw wasn’t sure she could articulate, in contexts even Shaw didn’t, Root understood Shaw.

How little time had Shaw known Root? Three, maybe four months? Hadn’t Shaw spent every waking moment with Root hell-bent on mastering the techniques and methods that made up who Root was? Some nights, Shaw thought they were getting somewhere — that  _ she _ herself was that much closer to figuring Root out. 

Turning over on her side, watching Root’s back and scarcely-moving figure, Shaw understood that she could quite possibly never understand Root. 

Perhaps people weren’t meant to be confined to something as limited as  _ understanding _ .

 

xx

 

Root wasn’t sure what she expected from Shaw, after that.

Pity, maybe. Tip-toed, faux sympathy and transparent apologies that only drove Root further down into her own personally carved ditch. To be fair, she half-expected Shaw to tone down on the sex, as if weary of how fragile Root’s (objectively impressive) stamina might get.

The next morning, Shaw woke Root up with her face between her thighs, soft nips at her hips, teasing, prodding Root until she was awake enough for Shaw to request permission, and then Shaw fucked her lazily, her tongue languid and teasing, her fingers needy.

Root gave zero fucks if Shaw’s roommates were home to hear Root’s long, drawn out moans that soaked the air more than Root herself soaked the sheets.

“Didn’t realize how much of a morning person you were,” Shaw remarked, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and a smirk.

Breathing heavily and hands still tangled in Shaw’s hair, Root just groaned, arching her back into Shaw’s warmth.

Shaw crawled back up Root’s length, unhurried and delicate. The taller brunette was about to request an encore, ready to push Shaw’s shoulders back down, but Sameen dipped forward and slanted her mouth against Root’s. It was a sensual, drawn-out kiss, Shaw’s lips pushing Root’s apart, a slow tongue skimming over Root’s teeth, against her own tongue, taunting. The ease with which Shaw’s hand grasped at Root’s hips, holding her, pinning her, pulling Root up against her.

Root hummed into Shaw’s mouth, snaking her arms around her Shaw’s neck. Root couldn’t quite get over the taste of Shaw’s mouth, of her wet lips dragging across her own. Distantly, Root thought of vacations she never had the opportunity to take. As her nails dragged across Shaw’s taut skin, the shorter woman nipped on Root’s lip, breaking the spell.

Something bobbed on Root’s lips, something forbidden. Unforgivable.

When Shaw climbed back down Root’s body, dropping hot, wet, open-mouthed kisses down her chest and stomach, leaving teeth marks and bruises in her wake, Root stared at the ceiling.

And she thought of unraveling as she closed her eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> crista @thesameenshaw is my spatulate for the record
> 
> this chapter ended up long as fuck and I split it into two parts. the next one i'll post sometime this week. thanks for reading, kudos/comments are greatly appreciated!! thanks xx


	5. god only knows what we're fighting for

Shaw rubbed her thumb over the corner of the photograph. It was dipped in a layer of humid dust, and she avoided the thought of how much of a cliché this was. Of course Root was the kid with an abandoned shoebox filled with photographs of her and some girl, all stuffed in the back of her closet. Kept close, but deliberately ignored and avoided.

Shaw wished she thought it was dumb.

There were stupid notes scribbled on the backs of most of them.  _ Oregon trail _ , or  _ I hate that mouse _ . Few of them made much sense to Shaw, as she flipped on through.

The girl  was pretty, Shaw thought idly.

In the few pictures Root appeared, she looked…

Different.

It took a while to place it.

It’s not like Root was sad or miserable all the time. The woman barely knew how to frown. But in the pictures, with the pull of her skin around cheekbones and the stretch of her smile held something that Shaw thought might be hope.

And she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen Root hope for anything at all.

“I thought I was the creep.”

Shaw looked up. “I, uh, I thought you were in class,” Shaw explained lamely. “I was just looking for my boots that I left here a while ago.”

Arms crossed and standing in the doorway, Root smirked, though her face lacked its usual edge. “Sure you were.”

She should apologize for snooping, but Shaw didn’t care all that much about lying to Root. “Who is she?” Shaw asked instead.

Root sucked on the inside of her cheek, pondering. After a moment, she sat beside Shaw on the bed. “Her name was Hanna. She was in the year above us, last year.”

Shaw watched Root carefully. “Did she transfer?”

“No. She killed herself.”

The words fell from her mouth like air-conditioning. Stale, frozen, hollow. 

Shaw wondered why people were so obsessed with feeling if this was what it meant.

It was a stupid question, but, “Were you close?”

Root smiled, a weak upturn of her lips. It didn’t even look like she cared enough to try and hide it. “I thought we were.” She licked her lips, eyes wide and empty, boring into the wall. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Again, she smiled sadly. “It’s okay. A shoebox was a sensible place to look for boots.”

Shaw nodded uncertainly.

“They’re under the bathroom sink.”

“The sink?”

“Yeah. I hid them. I just… I really liked those boots.”

Shaw wasn’t sure she was talking about the boots anymore. 

“I really, really liked them.” Root’s voice was stiff, and hard. It’s frigid temperature reminded Shaw of her own callousness, but perhaps what irked her more of its usage was that it wasn’t naturally grown. 

Root wasn’t born to be cold. She was born to adapt, and it only meant there was something she had to adapt to.

Quietly, Shaw dropped her hand on top of Root’s, tangling their fingers. Shaw knew that Root wouldn’t take it to mean anything it didn’t, she wouldn’t analyze or obsess. 

But maybe Shaw hoped she would think it meant something more than Shaw was capable of. That certainly was the closest Shaw would get to the real thing.

Root clenched her jaw, and squeezed Shaw’s hand back, staring at the floor.

 

xx

 

The weeks passed. Valentine’s day, went by unnoticed, but, almost suspiciously, mere minutes after midnight of the fifteenth of February, Root let herself into Shaw’s dorm with a strap-on under her baggy jeans and a knee-quivering amount of bondage toys in her bag.

The following morning, Shaw thoroughly struggled with walking to class.

 

xx

 

The week before spring break, Shaw walked into Starbucks after a physiology midterm harboring the first inklings of a migraine and shaking off the bitter rain from her shoulders.

Rather than swaying on the balls of her feet with that infuriating smile behind the counter, Root was lounged at one of the coffee tables, bent over her computer, oblivious. Shaw’s greeting didn’t extend much beyond a grunt as she dropped her bag down onto the empty seat beside Root, but the taller brunette smiled softly at Shaw before resuming her work.

Over her dead body would Shaw imply that she missed the obnoxious, relentless flirtations and horrible jokes, but Shaw also couldn’t say she knew what territory they were skimming now.

She couldn’t quite say she minded it either. An unsettling, rather.

After bumping through the line and sloshing her cappuccino back the table, Shaw slumped in her seat, head drooped tiredly in her arms. 

“I could go the rest of my life without having to talk about the philosophy of our biological makeup ever again,” Shaw grumbled, rubbing the corner of her eyes.

Without looking away, her fingers skittering over the keyboard, Root pursed her lips. “You look terrible, Sameen. You should get some sleep.”

“Oh please, you get plenty enough for the both of us.”

That made Root smile again, but she said nothing, pouring over her work.

“What are you doing, anyway?” Shaw asked, peering around the edge of the screen, leaning close enough for Root’s perfume to wash over her.

“This and that.”

Shaw looked more closely. “Are you… Are you hacking into the school’s database?”

“Technically, it’s not hacking if I was granted access.”

“Are you — Shit, are you changing your grades?”

Root smirked, windows flying and bouncing over the laptop. “Just a few adjustments.”

Leaning back, Shaw cocked her jaw. “Damn. I guess that’s one way to round up a grade.”

Root pondered that for a moment, her eyes wandering upwards, before she shrugged. “Sure. Let’s go with that.”

Shaw glanced wearily back to Root’s face. “‘Sure’?” she echoed with a raised eyebrow. “What were your original grades?”

Root leaned forward, squinting as she skimmed over. “Um, I had a 54 in Biotechnology, a 61 in my lab, a 39 in Parallel Computing and a 63 in Programming Methodology.”

Shaw blinked.

Sure — Root didn’t study much and she skipped now and then but—

“You’re failing all your classes?” Shaw asked dryly.

Root rolled her eyes. “D’s are not failing. And technically, I now have a 3.2 GPA. I’d go higher, but that might raise some suspicion, so I suppose I’ll settle.”

“I—“ Shaw’s mouth parted in bafflement, and she could only stare at Root incredulously.

Root caught on to Shaw’s look, and met her with a leveled gaze. “What?”

“Root, how the fuck are you failing?” 

Root looked like she was struggling to find the words to explain something complicated to a three-year-old. “Well,” she drawled slowly. “When you don’t show up to class, and you sleep through exams, professors tend to get a bit petty with the gradebook.”

“Why the fuck are you skipping your exams? Are you trying to flunk out?”

“Clearly not, if I’m going through all this effort to fix my grades.”

Shaw slammed Root’s laptop shut, angling her body towards the woman for her full attention. “Are you kidding me, Root?”

“What? Quit yelling at me. Everything’s fine.” Root went to lift the lip of her computer open again, but Shaw slapped it shut once more. “Would you  _ quit  _ that—“ 

“Nothing's fine, Root,” Shaw snapped. “You’re a drugged out alcoholic with a severe anxiety disorder, a heart arrhythmia, and psychos chasing you down for money, waving guns in your face, and now you’re on the verge of flunking out of college. What the hell about  _ any _ of this is fine?”

Root worked like a circuit board. It was simple, the way certain pathways opened up others, turned on a light.

Or perhaps, turned them off.

The next thing Shaw knew Root was storming out of the cafe into the harsh rain with her bag tossed over her shoulder. 

Shaw scrambled to gather her shit before she rushed after her. “Root, stop, Jesus where are you going?”

“I don’t need your help and I never asked for it, Shaw, so fuck off,” Root shouted over the rain, because — right  _ of course _ it was raining right now.

Stumbling after Root, Shaw shook her head. “Okay, well, too bad. I’m not going anywhere.”

Root halted in her rampage to whirl back on Shaw, Root’s voice like thunder as she crashed. “God, just  _ go.  _ I’m giving you an out, alright? Take it and walk away, Shaw, because I’m not an idiot and neither are you. We both know that you couldn’t give less of a shit about me, so  _ go _ , and call me next week when you’re horny and we can quit pretending that  _ this _ ,” and Root here waved furiously between them, “is nothing but a mind-numbing, piss poor excuse of an affair.” Root picked her pace back up just as quickly again, bounding away in her long strides.

“You don’t get to shut me out, Root.”

Root laughed, a snarl dancing in the sound waves. “Oh, but don’t I? Isn’t that what you do best? You’re a robot, Sam, and it is a goddamn dream come true for your fuck buddy to want nothing else to do with you.”

“I don’t shut you out,” Shaw criticized, wiping away the rain streaming off her forehead and dripping into her eyes.

“I don’t know shit about you, Shaw. I know how you take your coffee and I have your phone number memorized, but we will  _ never _ be anything but strangers to each other.” When Shaw opened her mouth to respond, Root suddenly pivoted, her dampened face aggravatingly close into Shaw’s. “And don’t you dare lie and say you care about me.”

“That’s not fair,” she said, her voice firm and low.

With the rain framing Root’s face wildly, Shaw wondered how she never saw this hurricane coming. “Nothing is fucking fair. If it were, I wouldn’t be standing here having this conversation with  _ you _ of all goddamn people.”

Shaw bristled. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

Root laughed bitterly. “Come on, Shaw. You’ve gotta realize we’re wasting our time playing this game. You and I? We’re just bad codes of one chaotic, faulty system.”

Shaw’s jaw clenched.

“We have nothing to show for any of this,” Root said, her voice both soft and quaking. “And I want nothing to do with you.”

Shaw swallowed, her tonsils like ashes. 

Who was she to fight back?

What would that even look like?

If Shaw could even muster up the answer to what Root was looking for, it didn’t matter all that much once Root was walking away from her.

As Root rounded the corner of the block and disappeared entirely, it finally stopped raining.

 

xx

 

Shaw banged into Joss’s dorm, her hair plastered to her neck uncomfortably, blood boiling. “I wanna know who the fuck she thinks she is,” Shaw snapped, slamming the door.

“Hello to you too,” Joss grumbled from the couch, pushing John off of her. 

“She says that I don’t care — fuck, she called me a robot, Joss. A robot. Do I look like a robot to you?”

“Yes,” John said.

Joss punched him in the shoulder. “You, out. Girl talk.”

Unable to find a beer in the fridge, she decidedly settled on John’s whiskey under the sink.

“He’s not wrong,” Joss said tentatively.

“You’re a bitch,” Shaw spit, wiping her mouth.

Joss rose from the couch, sweeping the wrinkles from her sweater. “Alright, how about you tell me what happened?”

Shaw stared out the window sourly, her jaw wired tight. 

Joss crossed her arms, popping a seat at the living room table. “Well?”

“She…” Shaw rubbed her lips together, sucking on the inside of her cheek. “She told me to fuck off and stop pretending that I care about her.”

“And? Do you?”

Shaw met Joss’s warm eyes with something akin to apathy, a passive indifference. “I don’t know, Joss. I… I know I’m different, okay? I’ve always understood that much, and… by default, I understand how other people work like I understand calculus. It’s — It’s mathematical, calculated, mechanic. People and their emotions, it’s all predictable.”

Joss nodded slowly, toying around with Shaw’s words in her head.

“I don’t think she has anyone else, Joss,” Shaw said, rubbing at the creases in her forehead. “Closest thing to a friend she’s got is her drug dealer that cares more about his pay day than her.”

Joss tilted her head. “What are you then?”

Shaw chuckled without even an attempt at a smile. “I dunno. I thought we were friends. I didn’t think it mattered. She didn’t want anything, and neither did I.”

“What do you want now?”

Shaw looked down again. “She doesn’t have anyone else,” she repeated lowly. “She’s gonna get herself killed if she keeps doing what she’s doing. With the drugs, the heart condition, her anxiety, her goddamn reckless attitude about everything, she’s—” Shaw pinched the bridge of her nose. “She’s here on scholarship, like me, and she’s gonna lose it. She’s gonna wind up on the streets or overdose until she’s in the ER or get herself hitched by the loony bin so pumped full of antipsychotics and sedatives that she won’t have room in her head to even  _ wish _ she’d died.”

Shaw heaved a sigh, running her hands through her hair. Joss looked entirely out of her depth, but she waited.

Shaw stared at the cheap wooden table, the intricacy of the layered growth rings. She couldn’t quite imagine what heartbreak would feel like, to someone that could hold it. On the outside it was… catastrophe. It was fury, quaking rage against the walls, and petty, backstabbing lawsuits. It was drunk and foul, it was bloody like white noise. 

She knew what heartbreak looked like. This wasn’t it.

“I get it, okay?” Shaw went on. “I get that some people need someone to be there for them, to help them, and that’s cool. I’ve never actually been that kind of person, on either end, because I’m upfront about it and I bail before someone gets attached.”

“Right, you’re a sociopath with morality. Got it. Continue.” Joss waved dismissively.

“People settle down. They network, they connect. It’s what they do. What I’m saying is… maybe I don’t care, not the way Root wants me to. But  _ she _ does. Right now, she needs someone, and normally — yeah, I’d dip out and let someone else do it. Someone who cares.

“But she has no one else.” Shaw sighed through her nostrils, her tendons along her neck, shoulders and arms shuddering in the difficulty of forcing these words out, forcing them into light. “She’s alone. And if she does wind up dead or whatever… what the hell am I supposed to do with the fact that I could have done something?”

Joss raised an eyebrow. “Your conscience is showing.”

Shaw waved her hands irritably. “It’s not about conscience. I mean, this is why I want to be a doctor, isn’t it? To do something, to help someone, because if I can save lives where someone else can’t, then it’s my duty, right? I can’t just sit around and let her kill herself because, what, my heart doesn’t skip a beat and I don’t get butterflies in my stomach when I look at her? That’s bullshit.” Shaw twisted the bottle around in her hands, picking at the label. “Root deserves better. She deserves a chance, and, no, okay, I don’t owe her anything. But she has no one. I’m all she’s got, and she’s stuck with me. So maybe I’m kind of stuck with her too.”

Under Joss’s analytical, heavy gaze, Shaw lifted the bottle again, reveling in the sting.

“Maybe I want to be stuck with her.”

“I don’t think I’m the person you should be talking to,” Joss said finally, her tone gentle, quiet.

Shaw stared at the floor impassively, fixated.

Joss shrugged. “Your little speech there could use an encore. Why not tell her?”

Shaw tipped the bottle again, shaking her head. “Root’s skittish. She’s like a drunk mouse.”

“Drunk?”

“Yeah, I mean, she’s always drunk, so.”

Joss nodded. “Makes sense.”

They rested in silence a little while longer, Shaw swirling the bottle, the amber liquid splashing about the glass. 

“Go talk to her,” Joss pushed. “Anything is better than nothing, if you really mean what you said.”

An indifferent smirk, Shaw rolled her eyes. “Right.”

 

xx

 

For spring break, Shaw tagged along with Zoe to Florida, worked on her tan, and spent more time swimming out to a small, crooked island just off the coast than actually drinking with Zoe’s friends. 

No one followed her out to the island.

It was her space.

When she sat on the rock, drying in the slick, weighty sun’s heat, the salt baking in her hair, Shaw thought of nothing but evaporation before she dipped right back into the ocean and lapped her way back.

Spring break ended as quickly as it started.

 

xx

 

The following Sunday, the day before classes started back up, the line for the elevator at Root’s dorm building was infuriatingly winding and long. The lobby was packed after the latest Quidditch tournament finished and the students were after-partying in the penthouse upstairs. 

(Why NYU had a Quidditch team was beyond her.)

Nine flights didn’t seem too bad, hopping two steps at a time, and with her impatient push of energy, she hardly broke a sweat by the time she reached Root’s door. It wasn’t that she was bursting with desire to blurt her undying feelings in front of Root, but rather she knew the longer she waited, the more likely she would talk herself out of it.

Because this was stupid.

It was all so  _ stupid _ . 

Did she really get off a plane two hours ago only to power through Manhattan back to her dorm, drop off her shit, then sprint to Alumni Hall just to tell Root, “ _ Hey, you’re stuck with me, I’m stuck with you, so maybe I can be your shitty therapist sometimes that you like to eat out? _ ”

She wished she could say it sounded better in her head than out loud, but neither option fit her right.

But whatever. She was doing it. Because Shaw wasn’t a quitter, and neither was Root, and whatever shit Root refused to admit that she needed or wanted from Shaw, well, she’d get over herself. Because— 

Maybe Shaw wasn’t broken.

Maybe she wasn’t less than her peers, maybe there wasn’t something inherently wrong with her.

She could be there for someone. Help someone, even. 

She could do good, even if she didn’t know what that meant.

When she knocked on the door, Martine answered.

“Oh. It’s you.” Martine lazily walked away, leaving the door ajar for Shaw.

Shaw stepped in after her, shutting it behind herself. “Is Root around?”

As the blonde plopped at the common area table, Shaw noticed the couch was gone before Martine responded. “She left.”

Eyebrows curiously furrowed, Shaw glanced around. “Do you know when she’ll be back?”

Martine rolled her eyes. “No, like, she’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yeah, gone. Vanquished. Removed. AWOL. Retired.”

“What do you—” Before Shaw finished her sentence, the words rotting the moment they touched the air, the woman strode to Root’s room, swinging the dorm.

“I’m telling you, she just left,” Martine said as Shaw stared at an empty bedroom save for a dorm mattress, a desk, a dresser. “I came back from break and it was empty, all her stuff gone.” 

Shaw stared at the clean walls, the bare floor, the crystal window panes.

“She just packed up and left.”

Shaw didn’t know what heartbreak was. 

But maybe it was just a succumbing to apathy.

Maybe it means you’re alone.

You stand in the doorway, the streets outside sound empty. You shut the door. You sit on the cold, cheap mattress. Tomorrow, you will wake up, and nothing will have changed over night. 

Maybe this was heartbreak. Maybe this was all it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i will forever and always love crista <3 
> 
> let me know your thoughts!!


	6. maybe if i tell myself enough

An apathetic slack to her jaw formed over the following weeks. 

The snow disappeared as quickly as it came, dirty sludge melting down the sewage pipes, the salt stains fading out of Shaw’s favorite boots. The weather forecasts all indicated impending showers, but it seemed that the sun was having none of it every time Shaw dragged out onto the sidewalk. 

Shaw spent a lot of time in Washington Square. 

She never was one to particularly need distractions, not with such a logical and mathematically composed mind, but even she had to admit to herself that the buzz of the park’s activities, the children’s laughter, and the performers’ tricks kept her focused on her work.

Shaw didn’t daydream.

If she found herself staring emptily at the dancers in the fountain ring, having lost her line in her textbook, her thoughts were blank. Dry, like brick, like stone.

Throughout the second half the semester, the sun started grinding on her patience. It was incessantly bright, unrelenting, and humid down on her black-clad shoulders. The sweat on the back of her neck when she walked up the stairs for a human anatomy recitation was irritating, and she learned how to hide behind sunglasses most days, her eyes tight and prickling after late nights studying.

If her mother were to ask, or a doctor, maybe, she’d say she was sleeping just fine.

Because she was. When she did.

When it was four a.m. and she had her first class at nine, she told herself she’d sleep when it was summer, and resume scribbling out flash cards.

Not that they’d been slipping, but her grades only soared for the remainder of the term, inching her GPA just that much higher. 

When the semester ended, she had nothing to complain about. 

When Shaw looked at the ceiling, yeah, she hoped Root was… happy… wherever she was. 

But nothing changed, and tomorrow always came, and Shaw wasn’t surprised by that anymore.

 

xx

 

The Thursday morning after spring break, one of Shaw’s roommates, Claire, asked, “Where’s the hot and mysterious chick been at? She always made coffee in the morning.”

Shaw took a lazy bite from her donut, expressionless. The roommate looked on quizzically still, until Shaw’s stone-sculpted mien left her uneasy, and Claire wandered back off to her room.

Shaw finished her donut, brushed her teeth. When the stovetop clock ticked 7:38, Shaw left for class.

 

xx

 

The day after, Shaw picked up her phone. Her thumb moved languidly over the screen — it didn’t shake, or hesitate. But it was slow as she pressed down on the call button.

It didn’t ring for very long.

“ _ We are sorry. You have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try your call again. _ ”

Shaw hit the button again.

_ “We are sorry. You have _ —“

Shaw hit the button again.

“ _ We are—“ _

Shaw locked her phone and tossed it onto her desk.

 

xx

 

Once, Root kissed Shaw’s cheek. It was stupidly gentle, but too quick for Shaw to respond to it. Just a hasty press of her mouth against the bottom of Shaw’s temple, her lips damp and warm. It was the same night Shaw had told her, “You deserve a lot more than this.”

Whatever “this” was, neither of them clarified. It meant anything. It meant everything. It meant nothing.

 

xx

 

The next Monday, they were serving Root’s favorite lunch at one of the dining halls. It was this stupid vegetarian meatball sub that Shaw could never even bear to look at for too long. Shaw grabbed a granola bar and left with quiet eyes. 

 

xx

 

Next Wednesday night, Shaw stopped by Starbucks. It was Root’s usual shift. Without fail, it was  _ her  _ shift. The barista that rang up Shaw’s cappuccino swore and cursed over the computer system, and asked Shaw to repeat the order three times.

Looking about the staff, Shaw didn’t need to stick around. “Forget it,” she said flatly before dipping out of the cafe.

 

xx

 

Thursday, Joss caught up with her. Well, she showed up at the door and pounded away until she answered.

“What’s your deal?” she snapped impatiently, crossing her arms in Shaw’s doorway.

Shaw blinked. “Me?”

“Yes, you, dumbass,” Joss groaned, stuffing her finger against Shaw’s chest. “We’ve been back nearly two weeks and none of us have heard from you. What’s up? Did Blondie dump you or something?”

“Root’s not blonde.”

“She kind of is, in a certain lighting.”

“I — whatever. We weren’t dating, there’s nothing to dump.” Aggravated, Shaw pushed her way into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Of course Claire finished her beer.

“Then what? Did you talk to her?”

Slamming the fridge shut, Shaw settled for water. “No.”

“No?” Joss rushed into the kitchen after Shaw, incredulous. “Bitch, why the hell not?”

Shaw’s only response was a lazy shrug.

“Oh, fuck that, you gotta give me more than that. What the hell did you do?”

A snarl on the crisp of her tongue, Shaw scoffed. “I didn’t do shit, she’s the one that bailed.”

Confusion rewrote itself on Joss’s face. “She — what? What do you mean she bailed?”

Jaw set, Shaw shrugged again. “She left. Her shit’s all gone, her dorm’s empty. There’s nothing.”

The fire in Joss’s step dwindled down, and she slumped back against the counter, speechless. “Well… um… where did she go?”

Another shrug.

“I… Um, are you okay? How… How’re you feeling?”

Shaw leveled her with a hollow glare. “You know better than to ask me that.”

Joss shifted her weight uncomfortably, like she was treading on eggshells. “It’s okay if you’re mad. Or upset. That’s normal.”

Face plain, devoid of all expression, Shaw didn’t blink. “I’m not feeling anything at all.”

 

xx

 

Shaw found an empty bottle of Jack under her bed. She doesn’t drink Jack. 

She doesn’t drink Jack.

An hour later, she walked down Broadway to the liquor store, picked up a new bottle.

Shaw doesn’t drink Jack, she reminded herself as she poured it out over a rocks glass.

She doesn’t drink Jack.

 

xx

 

When she wasn’t studying at the park, Shaw spent more and more time at the gym throughout the spring term, absorbing the clattering noise of the equipment. Probability had it that she was there, pounding down the treadmill or tugging herself over the pull-up bars. Once the dumbbells stopped cutting it, she picked kickboxing back up, splaying overzealous bros on the mats, knocking teeth and splintering noses. By mid-April, she was on her third warning for taking it too far before she would be kicked out of the class.

She was leaving the gym on a Friday afternoon when Zoe caught her.

“You  _ whore _ ,” Zoe exclaimed, smacking Shaw on the head.

Shaw ducked away. “The fuck? Wha—  _ Enough _ — Hit me  _ one _ more ti—“

Suddenly Shaw had Zoe wrapped in a headlock under her elbow, and the blonde screeched her surrender.

Letting her go, Shaw huffed. “You done with the assault?”

Zoe snuck in one more slap across Shaw’s face before taking a hasty step back. “Now I’m done.”

Shaw looked as if her blood was going to spill out her ears with the scowl her face had undertaken, and Zoe raised her hands submissively.

Shaw rolled her eyes and started to stalk off again, but Zoe quickly rushed into her pace. “Okay, but seriously babe, you’re ignoring all our calls. What gives?”

Shaw shrugged absently. “Been busy. Finals are coming up.”

“Yeah,” Zoe snorted. “In a month. Even you’re no’t that desperate.”

Lips pressed tightly together, she only shrugged again. “Just trying to stay ahead. I dunno what you want me to say.”

“Okay, okay,” Zoe sighed, waving her hands and stopping them both at the street corner. Shaw shot her an exasperated look, impatiently. “Fine, but even  _ you _ need breaks — just come out tonight with us. A bunch of us are hopping some bars and then headed uptown again. It’ll be fun — And, I’ll even buy your first drink.”

Shaw let slip a low groan as she rubbed at her eyes tiredly. If she ran, Zoe honestly would collapse down a set of subway stairs trying keep up in those boots. On the other hand, Shaw really was being a dick by the point, imitating some hung-up, heartbroken teenager wallowing in self-pity. The thought made her lips curl in disgust, and she rubbed her forehead.

No. She was Sameen fucking Shaw. If Root wanted to disappear without a word, leave and run when things got hard, fine. That was her choice. She didn’t owe Shaw an explanation, but Shaw didn’t owe Root one other second of her time.

When Shaw nodded stiffly, Zoe squealed, clapping her hands and throwing her arms around Shaw’s sweaty neck. “Yes, yes yes! I  _ promise _ we’re gonna have fun. You won’t regret it.”

Yeah. Sure she wouldn’t.

 

xx

 

The bars were boringly active enough. 

She managed a couple free drinks before subsequently dismissing her admirers, and Shaw thought it might be something Root would do. No, it definitely was something Root did.

Does.

Whatever.

The comparison gave her a sick taste in the back of her throat. She blinked, and it was gone.

She wasn’t…

She wasn’t  _ sad _ . Shaw wouldn’t even know what that might look like, but the empty pit in her stomach as she sucked a lime from Joss’s mouth before passing it onto one of Zoe’s friends was numbing. It was reminiscent of nights in rented out clubs, when Zoe started hurling limes at Shaw’s head based on some pot-stirring comment Root had made.

There was no nostalgia.

The memories didn’t squander her sanity like hard scotch or pebble her throat closed with a smog.

They just were. And there was nothing she could do with them.

After three bars, they hit a club. Even Shaw had to admit she would be stumbling if she wasn’t so focused on the ground in front of her as they waited for Zoe to smooth over her promoter. Joss, in her heels, was kneeling into John’s chest to keep her standing.

Shaw nearly twisted her ankle after stepping off the sidewalk curb, and some dude that Zoe had brought along from her psychology study group reached a hand along the small of her back to steady her. Ordinarily, she’d have his arm slung behind his back and would be hissing in his ear, but — she just let him.

She didn’t say anything when he kept his hand there after showing their ID’s to the bouncer.

Inside, over the reverberating bass, she learned his name was Cole. His smile was sweet, soft on the edges. He bought Zoe some pink cocktail, before offering modestly to grab her one as well. He didn’t seem the least bit offended when she bought her own drink — tequila on the rocks. He got himself a soda water with some lime, and she must have made a face, because he laughed.

“I don’t drink,” he shouted over the music with an easy shrug.

“So you’re just here for odors and bad music?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

He laughed again. “Sure, but the company usually makes it worth it.”

It was something subtle that Root would say, without quite meaning to let it slip, and Shaw chewed on an ice cube. “I think ours left us for the floor,” she remarks, nodding at their friends disappearing into the crowd.

He shrugged. “Zoe warned me she’d do as much. You dance?”

With an indifferent stare, she took another drink. “Not really.”

He smiled at her, lips pursed in amusement. “Just here for the overpriced alcohol?”

Shaw smirked at that and finished her drink for effect. “It gets the job done,” she said dryly. “Plus I was starting to look like a real shithead blowing Zoe off too much, so I figured one night couldn’t hurt.”

Two seats opened up at the bar’s corner, and he gestured over with question in his eyes. She let him take her over. The music was still obtrusive, but not so obnoxious in the corner, and she flagged the bartender for another drink.

“So what’s got you cooped up, then?” he asked, swirling his highball glass in his hand.

She was getting too drunk to recognize that she really had no interest in being there anymore. She shrugged. “Dunno. Finals coming up, you know.”

He nodded, and she wasn’t sure if he believed her. She didn’t know if she did either.

 

xx

 

Of course, they covered their typical  _ so-whattya-studying  _ conversation, and his interest in her route of kinesiology seemed more than ostensible, a little deeper than a vague interest at an unfamiliar word. It pieced into a little more sense when he shared he was in the pre-med program as well, studying software engineering.

She ignored the tug in her stomach at the mention of Root’s major. “Engineering and pre-med? Isn’t that kind of…” Shaw trailed off with a vague wave of her hands.

“Yeah, it’s mostly out of an inability to actually choose one track and stick with it, and the load is heavy, but I’m enjoying it so far.”

“Mhm. Gets you some real high nerd status too.”

Instead of offense, he only grinned.

 

xx

 

A migraine slicing her skull was what woke her, and she blinked sluggishly at the unfamiliar sheets. It smelled like… well, boy. Despite wanting nothing more than to bury herself into the pillow and ignore last night’s mistakes, she forced herself up on wobbly elbows.

Christ, how did Root do this every morning?

When she dragged her feet over the edge of the bed, she spotted Cole passed out on a typical dorm-room couch, his legs dangling over the armrest, elbow slung over his eyes. 

She wasn’t sure how she managed to end up in his dorm with her pants still on, but the evident respect of boundaries made her blink a little. She considered waking him up, or something, but instead shuffled around for her shoes and phone, and slipped out the door.

If it felt like rushing out of Root’s dorm on early, frigid mornings in an attempt to make it to class on time, she didn’t think about it.

 

xx

 

Her phone was flooded with a groupchat of messages from Joss and Zoe, mostly winky faces and thumbs-up’s. She ignored their implications, instead thumbing out a quick _thanks for dragging me out_ _last night_.

Saturday’s had her typically lounged in the park’s sunlight, studying finals, but in a spur of… something, she texted Zoe for Cole’s phone number.

 

xx

 

“Two nights in a row, Shaw? I’m flattered.”

“Don’t make me regret this,” she grumbled, dropping her bag onto the floor by his chair. 

He cocked his head almost childishly. “You’re a lot nicer with a drink in your hands.”

“Yeah, well, you can buy me coffee if it’s got you that butt-hurt.”

In the end, he does jog out of the library to grab her a coffee from a cart outside, and when he sets it down beside her, she rolls her eyes. “Whatever. Just, open your computer.”

“So, who am I looking for exactly?”

Shaw swallowed thickly, watching him fumble with the school’s mainframe coding, prodding at the firewalls. “Root. I mean — her name’s Sam. Samantha. Groves.” She cleared her throat audibly, rubbing at her jaw, but he didn’t seem to notice her awkward behavior.

“Root?” he echoed with familiarity.

She met his gaze with impassivity. “Yeah. She’s — she was in your program.”

“No, yeah, I think I know her.”

She said nothing.

“I have parallel computing with her. Well — sort of, she doesn’t go to class much, and actually, I haven’t seen her since spring break and-”

He cut off at the dark look on Shaw’s face and blinked baffedly. “Wait, is she like, missing?”

Shaw rolled her eyes, rubbing her forehead tiredly. “No. Not really. Just — can you get me her emergency contact, or what?”

He swallowed, steadied a long look at her, before he nodded, and turned back to the screen. 

He worked for another few minutes in silence before speaking again. “She was freaking brilliant. I mean, she helped me with a coding project once for the class that she hadn’t started, but she caught up a week’s worth of my work in under an hour before she was cool enough to help me through the next modules. Like, shit, her brain was huge.”

“Yeah, a fucking genius,” Shaw mumbled, sipping at her coffee.

She ignored the look he shot her.

Another ten minutes, and he sat up. “Right, got it. There’s… uh, there’s no name. Weird. But there are two numbers.”

Shaw tugged the laptop to face her, squinting at the screen before she scribbled the numbers down. “Cool, perfect.” Already gathering her things and standing, she almost darted out the library before pausing awkwardly. “Um, thanks.”

He nodded coolly with an indifferent shrug. “It was no problem. I’ll let you buy me coffee next time.”

She couldn’t read the look in his eyes, and she wasn’t sure that she wanted to. Either option left her with something dry in her mouth, so, almost clumsily in her haste, she rushed out of the library.

 

xx

 

The first number yielded an irritably familiar result.

“ _ We are sorry. You have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try your call again.” _

It had Shaw chucking her phone across the room.

 

xx

 

She picked her phone back up Sunday morning, a furious break slashed across the screen, but the second number only burned a hole in her jacket the longer she left it there. 

She wasn’t sure what was stopping her.

 

xx

 

If— 

If Root was in trouble, she’d call, she had to call. She’d call. She would.

She had to know that whatever shit she got herself into, Shaw would help mop up the mess. She wouldn’t ask questions. Well, not that many, anyway. Not the kinds most other people would ask

If she… If she was dead, or some shit, the school would say something. Send some generic email to commemorate the loss. Sure, Root was kind of a basket case that fell off the planet most weeks in terms of her classes, but she’d made an  _ imprint _ .

But Shaw couldn’t ignore the fact that all those months, that whole damn year, if Root wasn’t with her, she was with Jason or by herself. They’d been friends all year, all of Shaw’s friends knew Root, so Root’s friends had to have at least known of Shaw. Surely, there was someone that knew where she went. On the other hand, Shaw had never so much as seen Root text anyone she didn’t recognize

Yet, if no one else knew, then why hadn’t they come to Shaw to even ask about her? Maybe it was naive to consider herself as Root’s closest  _ friend _ at school, whatever they were, but undeniably they spent the most time together. Frankly, aside from breaks and petty arguments, they hardly went a day without seeing each other. If anyone were to know where Root was, it would be  _ Shaw _ .

A headache poked behind Shaw’s eyes and she scratched at the corners of her eyes.

She didn’t know what to do with the admittance that maybe Root really did have no one else.

 

xx

 

She had one picture of Root on her phone. It was at an uptown penthouse party, and she’s got her mouth wrapped around a beer funnel, crouching to the ground in tight black jeans, beer spilling out the corners of her lips as she tries to stop grinning.

She was staring at something just above the camera, her eyes glowing.

Shaw wants to delete it. She does.

She doesn’t.

 

xx

 

Shaw considered the idea that she might never see Root again. 

She didn’t know what that entailed, what that might look like.

Looking around herself in the park, her face devoid of emotion, she took a bite from her apple.

It would look like this.

It would look like nothing had changed.

In a physics lecture she took last year, some hipster kid raised his hand and asked about the common thought problem of an immovable object and an unstoppable force. He hadn’t liked the answer that they couldn’t possibly both exist in the same universe, let alone independently, and had prodded until the professor gave something more hypothetical. She’d said, if they were to simultaneously exist and collide, the amount of energy released on impact would devour the entire universe in an explosion. First, it would develop into a star, but continue to keep imploding until it eradicated absolutely everything.

Shaw never found out of the student was satisfied with that answer or not.

She thought the entire debacle of impossible hypotheticals was useless and doodled in the margins of her notebook most that class.

Root, someone so unstoppable, someone who quaked with such unbounded power, someone so capable of welding galaxies — she had collided with Shaw, someone so immovable, so transfixed, so focused, so empty but so full.

And what did they have to show for it?

Shaw flipped the page of her textbook, snatching another bite from her apple. 

Nothing. They had nothing.

 

xx

 

It was the end of April when Shaw dug out the phone number from her drawer.

Her hands didn’t shake, or hesitate, just languid and careless as they thumbed over her new phone screen.

She held itto her ear.

It rang once.

Twice.

Three times.

Four.

Fiv-

“Hello?”

Shaw choked on the water bottle at her mouth, sputtering and clearing her throat hastily. 

“Hello?” the voice repeated, uncertain, cautious.

It wasn’t Root, but it was _someone_. “Um, hi,” Shaw said lamely, rubbing at the back of her neck as her teeth gnawed over her bottom lip indecisively. “Is, uh, is Root there?”

“Who?”

Shaw swallowed thickly. “Samantha, Samantha Groves,” she said. 

There was a pause. Shaw’s jaw clenched painfully, her teeth whining. 

And then, “No. And don’t call again.”

The line closed.

 

xx

 

Joss tried to talk to her.

“So, any word from… you-know-who?”

Shaw blinked at her, taking a long pull from her beer. “No.”

Joss and Zoe shared a glance, but Shaw ignored it, redirecting her gaze across the bar, watching some freshmen in a dart game.

“Do you think she’s coming back?” Zoe asks tentatively, and it makes Shaw’s hand clench around the bottle. Their prudence, the caution around her, was snarling and aggressive under this lighting. It made Shaw want to hit something, or throw the neck of the bottle across the room. Their clear avoidance of her name, like she was dead, like this was  _ tragic _ , only carved her anger into something much sharper.

“I’m not talking about Root,” she said lowly, tipping her bottle back.

They didn’t ask about Root for the rest of the semester.

 

xx

 

“I think… I think I found something.”

“What?” Shaw scooted closer, pressing her face into Cole’s screen as he scrolled.

“Well, um, it’s just her… her academic file but, her enrollment status is… It just says ‘ _ absent.’ _ ”

“Absent?”

He nodded, biting the inside of his cheek. “Hold on. Let me keep looking.”

Shaw chewed distractedly on her thumb nail, sitting back in her chair. Well, at least she wasn’t, like, expelled, or kicked out for poor grades, or cheating. 

Just as Cole inhaled sharply, with a muttered “ _ Shit, _ ” it hit her.

Absent.

Leave of absence.

He was talking to her, spewing words like  _ medical leave _ and  _ mental health _ and  _ rehabilitation _ .

It sat emptily in her stomach. Like air, like water, like nothing. Shaw stared at the hardwood table, unblinking, the dawning of realization washing over her.

She listened. Root had  _ listened  _ to her, for once in her goddamn life, she actually taken what Shaw said to her and self-evaluated and she was doing something… something for herself.

She was getting help.

Root, in all her stubborn, high and mighty glory, was getting help.

She was doing this,  _ all of this _ , for herself, and no one else.

Cole’s voice dimming out as Shaw ignored him, eyes fixed on the floor, something like a smile tugged at her mouth.

She was going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long, and even still i'm not quite thrilled with where this chapter went, but i'm tired of it sitting in my drive staring at me. let me know what you guys think :)


	7. this is how they made me

“How’re you doing today, Ms. Groves?”

Chin drooping into her hand, Root stared out the office window, imagined she could see the soft edges of the breeze. “Does it matter?” she asked indignantly, the scorn tugging her lips down into a scowl.

Dr. Rose deflected the hostility with a cool, easy smile and comfortable armor. “Your symptoms have improved, I noticed.”

Root stole a glance down at the hand that rested in her lap, the stillness of her fingers, the ease of her wrist. The first week here, her detox week, her hands had quaked like radioactive material, the palpitations drumming in her chest leaving her wondering which one of her stupid problems would kill her first.

Today, though, she could keep her hands still in her lap, she could breathe — even on tough mornings, ones that had her rocketing from her mattress gasping for air, she still managed to coax her lungs into cooperation. It might be an embarrassingly slow process, eyes closed, palm pressed to her breast bone, but she did it nonetheless.

Dr. Rose labeled it progress.

Root knew it was pathetic.

“You had another dream.” It wasn’t a question, really. Dr. Rose tilted her head, curious, prodding in that almost taunting way of hers.

Root met her gaze with a dangerous glare. “So what if I did?”

“You can talk about it, here. In here, it’s not real. It can’t hurt you.”

Root smirked at that with a self-deprecating chuckle, but the drop of her eyes gave her away, sweeping over the floor before fixating on the window again.

“Maybe it should,” Root said after a moment. “Maybe I deserve it.”

“Why do you think you deserve to hurt?”

A gun, trembling in his hands.

Shaw’s eyes — wide, sculpted, confused, like she always had known she would die one day, and realized in the face of it that there wasn’t much she could do. How could you be afraid of that which was inevitable?

Root rubbed her forehead, eyes closed as her heart started to pick up again in her chest. When she opened them, it was pattering off a bit steadier, less painful.

“Maybe it’s a warning,” Root said, cringing at the shake to her voice. “That I should never have let her get so close to a fuck-up like me, get mixed up in my problems.”

“You’re not a fuck-up,” Dr. Rose told her, almost bemusedly. “A trainwreck at times, yes, but not a fuck-up.”

Root rolled her eyes, but the corner of her mouth lifted slightly.

Dr. Rose changed the subject, addressing the elephant in the room. “Have you told her where you are yet?”

“You say it like I plan to.”

The doctor shrugged, twirling her pen in her fingers. “She must be worried about you.”

At that, Root snorted. “Sameen doesn’t do worried. She’s—” Root bit her tongue, turning away.

“She’s what?”

Root swallowed. “She’s different.”

Dr. Rose let the topic fall, rested on the backburner along with a million other of Root’s inane problems.

The concept of Shaw, being _worried —_ it was laughable, truly hilarious.

But it did nothing for the sore sting behind Root’s eyes.

xx 

As she was filling out a form for her desired meals the next day, Root glanced at the woman next to her. “Wish these places offered liquid dinners, huh?”

The woman stared at Root for a moment before standing, crossing the room to sit by herself.

“I thought it was funny,” Root mumbled.

When Root mentioned it to Dr. Rose, the doctor merely pursed her lips. “I’m not sure this is the place for those kinds of… jokes.”

“Who said anything about a joke?”

Dr. Rose only raised her eyebrows.

xx 

When the warm weather rolled around, as it did quicker in North Carolina than it did in New York, they took their rec time outside, opening up the courts and letting residents out onto the lake.

A boy — he couldn’t have been much younger than Root, honestly, and that was both frightening and thrilling — urged her out to the water with him, with a hand outstretched and a wide grin.

“I—” Root glanced behind him at the water helplessly, swallowing at the sudden dryness of her throat. “I don’t know how to swim.”

He shrugged, and dove in without her.

xx

“I was thirteen.”

“I’m sorry?”

Root met Dr. Rose’s inquisitive eyes with an apathy that left the room cold.

“The first time I tried coke. I was thirteen.”

The doctor lower her chin carefully. “Was that the first drug you ever tried?”

“No.” Root cocked her jaw, grinding her teeth. “I mean, I don’t know. My mom smoked a lot of weed, basically hotboxed the apartment. I used to leave when she did, go to the park or something, because I started to feel weird. Lazy, tired, out of it. But she started doing it more and more often, and I just got used to it. Sometimes I couldn’t sleep, and I’d sneak into the living room to sit with her, or her friends, ask her to read me something or… I don’t know. Just to sit with her. But she’d just smoke me out until I was so tired I passed out.”

Root blinked at Dr. Rose’s impassivity.

“I don’t… I haven’t talked about her in years. Haven’t even thought about her.”

“What happened to her?”

Root swallowed thickly, her throat tight like drowning. “I-I don’t know. She… I don’t know.” Something closed over Root’s face, a falling like the way the sky grew dark, closing off, shutting down. Root cleared her throat. “I gotta say, though, I did acid last summer before going clubbing, and that shit was wild. Time of my life, truly.”

Rooted despised the look that Dr. Rose gave her, those pathetically sad eyes, the pity. It made Root nauseous.

xx

 

“Did you have a favorite?”

Root raised her eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

Dr. Rose waved her hadn’t vaguely. “A favorite drug, a preferred high. Psychedelics, narcotics, stimulants?”

Hesitant, Root gave a sort of weak shrug. “Um, molly, I guess.”

“Why?”

“Because. It made me… happy. Peaceful. I could close my eyes and…” Root’s sentence dwindled, and the familiar ache throbbed behind her eyes. “I could close my eyes and I wouldn’t be so scared of the dark anymore.”

Dr. Rose wrote something down.

xx

“I don’t like being called Sam. Or Ms. Groves.”

“What would you liked to be called then?”

“Root. My name is Root.”

If she thought it stupid, the doctor didn’t let it show. Instead, she smiled, like it delighted her that Root trusted her with something real. “Okay, Root it is then. How’re you feeling today, Root?”

xx

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Root had whispered once to Shaw, in the darkness of her dorm, both of their stares vacant against the ceiling.

“About what?” Shaw had asked.

Root swallowed. She didn’t say anything else, just blinked rapidly.

“Um.” Shaw cleared her throat, shifting in the sheets a bit beside her. “What do you want to be doing?”

“I don’t know,” Root had confessed, her voice cracking, just the barest of fractures. “I just want it to stop.”

Root felt more than saw Shaw’s head turn towards her, regarding her face under the gaze of the moon’s light through the window. “Want what to stop?”

Root closed her eyes. “Feeling like… like this. Feeling anything.”

They had laid in silence after that, a little bit longer, Shaw biting her lip and Root clenching her teeth, until Root rolled off the mattress and ducked into the bathroom.

Root flicked on the shower, but she wouldn’t have been surprised if Shaw could still hear Root’s broken sobs over the running water.

 

The next morning, Root pretended it never happened.

She supposed Shaw didn’t know what else to do but follow suit.

xx 

The boy — Daniel, she learned — was beckoning her over again from where she sat on the edge of the grass, her bare feet just barely reaching the sandy shore. He still emitted a glow with his everlasting smile. Root wondered how someone so bright could let themselves be locked up in a prison like this.

“I’m good,” she said flatly, her lips tight in a firm line that, well, one could imagine it might look like a smile given the right context.

“C’mon, I promise I won’t let you drown. We don’t have to go out that far.”

“I said I’m good.” Her bite was harsher this time, no longer attempting pleasantries, before Root picked herself up and stalked back into the shade of the rec room.

xx

“You don’t have many friends, do you?”

Root raised an eyebrow. “Are you allowed to ask me that?”

Dr. Rose shrugged, lips pursed bemusedly. “I can ask you anything I want. I’m being paid to ask the questions no one else wants to.”

Root rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I have friends.”

“Name one.”

Root scoffed. “No.”

“Because you can’t?”

Root’s mouth twisted into a snarl. “What’s your problem?”

“What’s yours?

Huffing, Root tore her eyes to look out the window again. “Fine. Jason—“

“Drug dealers aren’t friends.”

Root clenched her fists. “Shaw—“

“How many times did you tell her that you’d never be anything more than… what was the term you used? ‘Fuck buddies?’”

The skin around her jaw was taut, like a rubber band quivering before it snapped. “Zoe—“

“Are Shaw’s friends _really_ your friends?”

Root counted to five before trying again. “Martine—“

“No offense, but it sounds like Martine strongly dislikes you.”

Root was out of her chair in an instant, eyes ablaze with white-hot fury. “ _Fine_ , I don’t have any _fucking_ friends, are you happy?”

Dr. Rose hardly even looked surprised.

“I’m fucking _alone_ ,” Root gasped, the core of her spine vibrating, volatile. “I don’t have anyone because I’m a self-destructive cunt that distances herself from every good thing she’s ever had, because the goddamn _second_ I dare to take a chance on anything, I know, I just know it’s my fault when it falls apart. Because it _always_ falls apart.” Root swiped angrily at her wet cheeks, shaking her head. “I don’t get a happy ending,” she said quietly, like telling the time of day. “I’m nothing. I’m a pathetic bitch that can barely manage to drag herself out of bed in the morning, that can’t even make it through the front doors of a classroom without bursting into tears about what a _disappointment_ I’ve turned myself into. I’m at one of the most expensive, respected colleges in the damn world on a full-ride scholarship, and I can’t focus long enough to read a damn article for class.”

Root was pacing the room now, just barely refraining from slapping frames off the wall and shredding books apart in her quivering claws.

“I’m the epitome of garbage, do you get that?” she went on, her voice hitching to something frantic. “I’m the person parents don’t let their kids hang out with, the girl they refuse to make eye contact with walking the street because I reek of last night’s whiskey and today’s joint. I’m not someone you can bring home on Thanksgiving, or someone who knows how to buy a meaningful birthday present — I’m not someone that even _remembers_ important things like birthdays or anniversaries. My own father couldn’t even stand to meet me, he disappeared before I was born and then my _mom,_ the woman who raised me and fed me and put me in school and tried to know me — she didn’t even fucking want me! After everything, after all those years together, she couldn’t look at me with anything but disgust and resentment for all the things I held her back on.”

Root was crumbling, her skeleton trembling inside her flesh, but it was different from the withdrawals that left her sweating and gasping in her bed sheets, that swallowed her tongue. This was bold, this was dangerous and powerful, something snapping inside of her that unleashed a lifetime of suppressed anguish and crippled innocence. Her chest cracked open as if on the command of some greater deity, as if Root’s vessel was a gate guarding hell.

A look of the devil tore her eyes into something difficult to look at , but it was with the peace and serenity of a small child that the room was left with.

Dr. Rose maintained eye contact fluidly, her face calm and patient. Almost sheepish at her outburst, Root swallowed thickly, shifting on her feet. “Is this the part where you tell me that I’m going to be here a lot longer than we thought? That I’m unfixable?”

And then Dr. Rose smiled this sweet, proud thing across her face, startling Root with its brightness. “On the contrary, Root. I think this means we’re finally getting somewhere.”

xx

Root hated group therapy.

The whole sitting-in-a-circle was cliché, the sob stories made her cringe, and her insecurities morphed into her ugliest self with every scowl and judgmental roll of the eyes she puts out. Afterwards, sure, she’d feel guilty at the smirk she hid into her shoulder when Helen burst into tears for the _fifth goddamn time_ that session, because to be fair, she did lose custody of all three of her kids and find a restraining order for her against her husband all after one blacked-out evening. Root supposed she’d be a bit weepy too.

It’s just... the _looks_ that she’d get, when it was her turn to talk, the looks that said they know how she’s feeling when in fact they have absolutely _zero_ idea of what was going through her head aside from the sheer desire to rip the entire room to shreds and scream at everyone to just _stop fucking looking at me!_

“I’m good,” is all Root offered, that and a tight-lipped smile, when Chris asked how she’d been doing.

Everyone else, he’d always push until they let something out, until they confessed to an inner turmoil, or something. But with Root, he just nodded. “That’s good, Sam. That’s really good.”

 _Sure it is_.

He went on to the next, but Root still felt the eyes of half the group boring into her, their pity making the hairs on her arm rise.

xx

“How did you meet Hanna?”

Root didn’t blink. “I don’t talk about her.”

Dr. Rose raised her eyebrow. “Don’t? Or can’t?”

“Cute, but I’m still not talking. Change of subject or I’m leaving.”

The doctor leaned back in her chair, biting absently on the end of her pen. “Well,” she drawled carefully. “The door’s right there.”

It was the type of gamble Root would normally respect. Well, not that she’d have much to lose if Root walked out, aside from a little less of a paycheck perhaps and some paperwork. But it was Root’s ass on the line.

She bit her tongue and a faced the wall. Still, she said nothing.

“How did you two meet?” Dr. Rose asked again.

And so she told her.

xx

“I, um —” Root began tentatively, wringing her hands anxiously in front of her. “I wanted to apologize, about last week.”

Daniel blinked up at Root, squinting against the harsh rays of the sunlight behind Root, and he lifted a hand up against the light.

Despite the spectacular weather, there weren’t many other residents outside by the pond. The lifeguard fanned himself lazily as he swiped through a magazine up on his post, a wooden structure more resemblant of something you’d find on a playground for children to imagine as a castle. A man and a woman were splashing at one another in the shallower puddles along the shore, and a slash of wet sand was caked against the woman’s cheek, contrasting her brilliant grin as she shoved playfully at the man’s shoulder. His trunks were too tight for his frame, and he sat awkwardly on his knees, shifting now and then to tug up the swim shorts, before resuming to dig the hole they were working on.

Root blinked her gaze away from them, rubbing her clammy palms against her jean shorts.

“It’s all good, no worries,” Daniel told her easily with an assuring smile. “You said you don’t know how to swim?”

Root resisted the reflex of lashing out, of bearing claws instead of revealing a weakness, but she just clenched her toes in the sand and nodded stiffly.

“I totally could teach you, if you’re up for it.” At the look of suffocated distress on Root’s face, he quickly added, “But it’s chill either way.”

Root thought about the times she’d stumbled over Sameen in the library, cross-legged on the floor between the stacks, nose pinched adorably as she poured over memorizing molecular structures. Root thought about how teasingly she’d probed the girl into letting her help her study for her upcoming exam, of dragging the textbook out of Sameen’s lap and talking her through the structures logically, pushing her. Shaw grew frustrated quickly, snapping at Root to just tell her the answer when she didn’t remember, but Root always held out. Dropped a hint, reminded her of a law, of a similar question Sameen had already answered correctly, until Shaw worked through the answer eventually.

Maybe it was time for Root to let someone else teach her a thing or two.

Sure, the lift at the corners of her mouth looked terribly strained and restrictive, but Root nodded nonetheless, and with an ecstatic grin, Daniel tugged Root along behind him to the water.

xx

Root had never been very talented in the arts.

Her passion for coding and tinkering began early — first grade, perhaps, when she first had access to the computer lab at school. But even long before then, she’d stumbled over HTML and JavaScript books in the attic, the corner of slumping brown boxes that belonged to her dad, along with everything else he had left behind (“ _not me, he never meant to leave me, he would’ve stayed, if he’d known about me, he’d have stayed, wouldn’t he have?”_ she used to ask her mom).

First grade computer lab was just a chance to put into action everything she’d learned only in theory.

Art class was always a bore — Root really only preferred to spill blobs of meaningless paint over her canvas, to cut sharp, jagged shapes of construction paper into something that could only resemble a spiky bush. Her art teacher thought her creations were intriguing, insightful. Root knew them to be garbage.

At the “wellness” center, as they insisted she called it, Root was required five days of art therapy a week. One day, she was aggravatedly fed up with the way the counselor smiled so sweetly down at the slippery mess of nonsense on her paper, a drawing of random lines overlapping all over the page, how he told Root that it was “pretty cool” when anyone with eyes could see it looked like the work of a toddler with ADHD. It was that day that she spotted a wheel in the corner of the room, tucked beside a shelf of plastic bins and buckets of paint brushes.

Instead of chewing out the poor counselor’s patronizing ass, Root leveled her irritation into only a flat press of her lips. She gestured over to the pottery wheel in the corner. “Are we allowed to use that?”

Following her direction, the counselor’s eyes lit up. “Absolutely! Do you know how to throw?”

Root’s eyebrows furrowed. “How to what?”

“Throw clay,” he gushed, nodding enthusiastically. Ugh, this man made her nauseous. “Have you tried it before?”

Root shook her head, bit the inside of her cheek as she forced out her next words. “No… no I haven’t. Would it, um, be possible to teach me?”

His repulsive energy never tampered down as he showed her a way around a pottery wheel, with centering the lob of clay, keeping her hands wet, finding that steady sweet spot before dipping in or pulling out the gray edges however she pleased.

Root had never been very interested in art, and still, she didn’t make anything very impressive over the course of her time at the wellness center. Much of the time was spent losing herself to the slick feeling of a perfectly round dome of clay spinning against her palms, her fingertips, scratching waves and lines into the edges before smoothing it out once again.

If it wasn’t so cheesy, she’d remark that centering the clay felt a bit like centering herself — but that is really damn cheesy, so she didn’t mention it. But Dr. Rose seemed to understand anyway what about throwing clay it was that held Root’s interest.

xx

“We went to highschool together, but we didn’t really know each other then,” Root admitted quietly, tugging at the seams of the brown armchair.

Dr. Rose tilted her chin, urging Root to continue.

Root cleared her throat. “I mean, I knew who she was. God, who didn’t? She was… beautiful, smart, funny, kind. She was one of those popular girls that really deserved to be popular, you know?”

“And you?” Dr. Rose asked. “What were you like in high school?”

Root chuckled. “I don’t know, I was the computer geek, hung out in the library or the lab most of the time. I wasn’t… a part of anything, really. A lot of people knew who I was, I did a lot of tech constructions for the theater department, or graphic designs for clubs, helped the AV club fic their equipment. I drifted around, and most people liked me well enough, I guess.”

“But…” Dr. Rose pursed her lips. “You never stuck around too long anywhere, did you? Got too close with anyone.”

Despite herself, Root smiled slightly. “I guess. It was high school, I didn’t care about friends and relationships. I just wanted to get out of there.”

Dr. Rose hummed. “Alright, so, you and Hanna — you went to highschool together, but never really became friends until college?”

“Yep.” Root began scratching at the side of her thumb, refraining from anything too sharp into her skin lest Dr. Rose stick mitts on her hands again. “I, uh, I ran into her during freshman orientation week. I went to this school-hosted casino night that my roommate dragged me out to, figured I could score some cash under the table by betting against a few hotheads. We ended up at the same Blackjack table, made some small-talk, laughed a bit. Then she won, put down an ace and queen, beat the dealer, and I asked her, ‘is there anything you can’t do?’” Root’s fingers stilled from their scratching, her eyes dropping to the floor into a softer look.

“She… she kind of smiled at me, like she knew something I didn’t, and then she whispered in my ear that she’s never been very good at fifty-two pickup, and the dealer — the dealer had like six decks on the table beside him, and Hanna, she just grabbed them all and chucked them into the air. I didn’t even have time to ask myself if this chick was actually real before she pulled me out of my chair and we were running out of there, and she was still hurling cards into the air as we ran out.” Root smiled now, despite the wetness of her eyes, despite the drop that slipped down her cheek slowly. “God, I thought she was crazy. But I loved that about her.”

Dr. Rose said nothing for a few minutes, as Root’s vision swam with the memories of that night, of Hanna’s brilliant grin, her beautiful laugh, how she’d keeled over three blocks away on the sidewalk, gasping for air through her laughter, bumping shoulders with Root. Hanna had squinted her eyes up at Root with another odd shape to her smile, before she announced she wanted ice cream. Over two cones of Häagen-Dazs, Hanna had looked over at Root, a smudge of chocolate syrup on her nose, and said, “I’ve always wondered what your favorite kind of ice cream was.” Root raised her eyebrows in response. “And I’m not disappointed.

Root still wondered if anything would have changed if she’d just kissed her that night.

xx

In group, like every other day, Chris turns to Root. “So, Sam, anything you’d like to share today?”

She opened her mouth to tell him _pass_ again, to dismiss it and keep her stare on the clock hands ticking down the wall, but something choked back in her throat. She licked her lips, swallowed.

“My name is Root,” she said, finally.

Chris only smiles coolly, and nods. “Excuse me, then — Root, would you like to share with the group today?”

Root clenched her fists, imbedded her nails into the palms of her hands until her hammering heart wasn’t so deafening. Glancing around, avoiding making eye contact with anyone, Root sighed. “I… Um.” She blinked quickly, swallowing past the impenetrable sand in her mouth. “I miss being in school, I think.”

Chris sat forward, clasping his hands together calmly like this wasn’t the first time Root had spoken more than two syllables the last two months. “Right, you go to NYU, yes?”

Root nodded numbly.

“What do you miss about it?”

She wanted to snarl back, to close up like something latched shut, kick back in her chair and return her sight onto the clock. But she licked her lips, and continued staring at Chris’s hands.

“I miss… the classes, the exams. Not that I actually went to most of them.” At that, a chuckle runs through the circle, and Root almost smiles with them. “I actually really like learning.” Thinking of a constant, ridiculously adorable frown and those obnoxious eyerolls, Root adds, “And I miss… my friends.”

“That’s good, Root,” Chris affirms appreciatively, his head bobbing up and down. “Anyone have anything to add?”

An older woman with a spiraling neck tattoo a few chairs down nods vehemently. “I know exactly what you mean. My biggest regret is not attending my father’s alma mater, thinking I knew what the hell I was doing with a guitar.  As soon as I’m out of here, I don’t care where, I’m applying to anybody that’s got a damn piece of chalk.”

Another laugh ripples through the group, and Root finds herself chuckling as well, her teeth showing through her smile.

xx

Floating on her back, Root glided her arms back and forth over the water like she’d practiced, squinting up at the few clouds roaming across the sky. It reminded her of her childhood in Bishop, because given that it was only mid-May, the sun was nearly boiling the water lapping at her neck, over her bare stomach — the semester at NYU was sure to have ended by now, she realized.

“Hey Daniel?”

He had been swimming circles around her while she floated for the last ten minutes, popping under and out of the water like a fish. At her voice, he straightened up, swinging his wet hair out of his face. “Sup?”

Root bit her bottom lip. “Can I ask you something pretty personal?”

From the corner of her eye, she could see his face split into that boyish smile of his. “You wanna know why I’m in here?” he guessed.

Root nodded, and Daniel began to stroke over to the buoyed ropes at the edge of the swimming area, and Root doggy-paddled after him clumsily before grasping onto the ropes to hold her aloft.

Daniel ran a hand over his forehead, swiping his hair better out of his eyes. “I have a daughter,” he confessed, his eyes twinkling at the thought of her. “She’s two. I was only eighteen when I had her, a gift from prom night with a girl named Stacie.” He chuckled, but the edges of his grin were weakening. “I withdrew my college applications, to stick around, y’know? But I just…” he trailed off, his mouth settling into a grimace like he tasted something sour. “I got lost. Started working in the kitchens at some fancy place, and, well… everyone there always gets into stuff. At first it was just to get through the long, sweaty shifts, and then it was to get through boring days off at home, and then it was… always.”

Root thought about reaching a hand out onto his shoulder, or to grasp at his fingers for support, but she didn’t move, only slumped her chin into her elbows over the rope.

Daniel inhaled shakily. “And then… we got an eviction notice, three days to either pay rent or get out, and I had the money, I kept telling Stacie I had the money and we’d be fine. Even when I was buying more smack and I still hadn’t paid the rent, I kept thinking, of course I have the money, I’ve got more, it’ll be fine, there’s no way I’d get kicked out of my own house, you know? I told myself I didn’t have a problem, that this wouldn’t happen to me, because how could it? That wasn’t… that wasn’t me.

“But it was. And she took off, she took Jenny and she left me, and she said she wasn’t coming back until I got it together.” Daniel shrugged. “There wasn’t really any… huge thing that went down, didn’t take her to court or fight for it. I just remember sleeping in my car that first night, alone, shooting up just to stay warm, and it didn’t matter much to me if she was right or not. I wanted my daughter back, I didn’t wanna waste a damn day without her. So I called my mom, told her everything, and she took out a loan to get me in here.”

Daniel laughed then, dropping his chin. “Sorry, you probably were just wondering what my poison was, huh?”

Root smiled gently. “It’s okay.” Then, as an afterthought, she added, “Thank you for telling me. I know it’s not my place, but for what it’s worth, I think she’d be proud of you.”

“Stacie? Nah, she’s hated me since the day she took that pregnancy test.”

Root shook her head. “No, your daughter, Jenny. Putting aside your ego so you can be better for someone you love, that’s hard. I don’t think many people ever figure out how to do that.”

Daniel cracked a grin now, his playful musing coming back. “So, who are you in here for then? Who are you trying to be better for?”

Root chewed on the inside of her cheek, considering his question as her gaze dropped to flit over the bobbing water. Perhaps to prove her dad wrong for leaving her, to get that chance at showing him what he missed if he’d stayed. Maybe it was to spite her mother, to do what she never could do. Or maybe she was here to… honor Hanna’s memory, in a way, to make her proud, to take all the good and the love Hannah had infused into her life to become something great, instead of letting the grief devour her.

And then there was Shaw — Sameen, who was hard-headed but brave, cold but loyal, grumpy and aloof, but patient and kind. Shaw, who had a thousand and one opportunities to leave Root in the dark, who had no reason or motive to stick around and make sure Root ate regular meals (“ _No, Root, adderall and beer do not replace food. How did you even get into college?”_ ) or ensure that Root at least got a glimpse of the sun while it was still out instead of hiding out in her cave smacking at her keyboard all day. There was nothing kismet or destined about them — everything urged and prodded for Shaw to walk out the door and not come back. But Sameen Shaw, the emotionally-stunted cyborg with a no-nonsense attitude for drama and feelings… she chose to stay. She chose Root. And that damn well meant something.

“Me,” Root answered finally, looking up at Daniel. “I’m here for me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so... long time no see. been having major writers block for the last year, really. just sat down and finally finished this shit out. thanks to those of you who've stuck around for this
> 
> let me know what you think! i've never been in rehab before, but i've gone through similar programs/processes, so i hope nothing is too far off. 
> 
> i'd also love to hear what you think about root's road to recovery, because i've tried to ensure that her struggles are more than just an angst factor for a fic, but a way to explore a dark side of Root that i don't think she ever had the time to address in POI, what with being a criminal and trying to save the world, and all. i very much believe that there was a lot of unresolved emotional turmoil in root's past, but given her lifestyle in the show, it presented by becoming something of a villain for a long time before she found her true path. so, this is my way of exploring how Root might have coped with everything in her life had she not gone into crime.
> 
> one more chapter!


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